PHOENIX -- A good looking 40-year-old man with blond hair, blue eyes and an engaging smile, married and the father of three, sat across from me.
You'd never know he is a gorilla. If I ever had fears of such a man/beast, they have been abandoned.
You see, he's a sports mascot. Not just the ordinary variety, but he goes by the name Gorilla, and that's what most people see at any Phoenix Suns basketball game or at any number of charity events and school visits throughout the year.
He gets the crowds pumped. He prances, he beats his chest, he runs, he jumps, he rides a motorcycle, he dresses up for a variety of skits to amuse the fans, even delivering pizza.
He is as much a part of the NBA team as the current heroes: Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Quentin Richardson, Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion and Jim Jackson.
They shoot hoops. Gorilla even does that, and he is astounding. He became the powerful primate after 500 others auditioned in 1988. He has never looked back.
The Gorilla is Bob Woolf. And Bob Woolf is the Gorilla. It has been so for the past 17 years. That in itself is a record.
Few people have ever seen the man who climbs into his gorilla suit, one of three he has. It's his little secret, shared with a few friends, neighbors, his family and now I, also, have seen the face usually covered by a rather heavy and hot latex gorilla mask .
There are lots of team mascots but Rick Reilly, in an April 25 Sports Illustrated article, describes the Suns' as "the King Kong of sports mascots."
"I was unmasked, so to speak, early on, but everyone has forgotten that through the years, and my identity is pretty anonymous. My name was printed for just the second time in my career in the SI story, but I never have my picture taken, at least not as Bob Woolf."
I haven't seen many mascots beyond our Pirates' Parrot, but I do know one thing. Gorilla gets the crowd going. He parades and jumps around the arena before sold-out crowds now that the team is in the NBA finals, but, while it is more fun when you are winning, he exerts just as much energy during losing seasons ... and there have been those.
Right now, "definitely more fun" he says, although with all the extra games and home-court advantage as far as the playoffs take them (the second round with Dallas Mavericks has just begun), he's working a longer season and for the same annual salary, around $200,000. He admits it is physically more exhausting when you are winning.
He lives and breathes Gorilla. To his three children, ages 7, 5 and 2, he's just their dad who dresses up in a costume to go to work.
So, I wondered, does he scare children? A gorilla is, after all, fearsome and intimidating.
"Some, yes," he says, "but given 20 minutes, I can usually win them over, just with a gentle manner. I think it is ironic that kids in my family used to pick favorite animals and mine was the gorilla. I had no idea about my future. I used to want to be a stunt man or a pilot.
"I fell into this. I couldn't do it if there wasn't still a little kid in me. I love what I do. If it embarrassed me to tell people I was the Suns' Gorilla mascot, I wouldn't be doing it."
His early goal after Arizona State was to be an Olympic gymnast. He didn't make it, but if you watched him at halftime and at time-outs doing his trampoline routine, running and hitting the mat, flying high in the air and doing somersaults while managing to dunk a basketball, over and over, you would gasp.
And all the while in that hot Gorilla outfit. No, there is no cooling system cleverly stitched in the black fur. He loses about 5 pounds each game, he says.
Mesh netting separates the fabric from his skin. He wears knee and elbow pads, but it hasn't totally protected him. He has had injuries to both shoulders and his ankles, and has suffered hernias.
They cast his face to create the Gorilla head.
"There's no second Gorilla," he says. "I have to be ready for every game, every appearance."
He figures he has done 800 games and he has traveled around the world .
Sometimes he gets a perk, like driving a Harley around the America West Arena basketball court with actress Tara Reid sitting behind him. That happened at one of the games I saw, with the Suns eventually having a four-game sweep against the Memphis Grizzlies. Reid was there with a friend. So was Sen. John McCain.
It's all for publicity, but Woolf is also having so darned much fun. "I'm proud. I'm often giddy because I'm the Gorilla," he says.
And Woolf says the only negatives are the heat, the makeup he must use around his eyes and the laundry. He spends several off-hours at home each night doing laundry ... yes, all that black furry material has to be washed, and it's part of his job.
I loved this story:
His wife was at a game recently, seated with players' wives, and a fan pointed to her and told her friend, "That's Mrs. Steve Nash."
Mrs. Woolf replied, "No, I'm the Gorilla's wife."
And the fan said, "Oh, even better."
First Published: May 15, 2005, 4:00 a.m.