State - East Lansing It's easy being Green Man Michigan State student goes green at basketball games

By Aaron Aupperlee Kalamazoo Gazette EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- His one-piece, skin-tight, neon-green suit says a lot about his passion for the Spartans. A fixture in the student section of Michigan State University basketball games, Jack Cogswell is a mild-mannered double major in supply chain management and Chinese language most of the time. But on game days, the 21-year-old Hackett Catholic Central High School graduate from Kalamazoo County's Oshtemo Township slips into the green suit, becomes Green Man and rallies the faithful. "I basically just dance around kind of and make a fool out of myself," Cogswell said. During halftime, timeouts and other breaks in the action, he is a fury of green, lanky, shiny movement. Once, Sparty, Michigan State's bulked up mascot, came over and pointed to his back. Cogswell jumped on for a wild piggy-back ride around the Breslin Center floor. "The Izzone kind of encourages people to be goofy and come out and have a good time," he said of the student cheering section. "I decided to wear (the suit) and join the green pope, Batman and the banana," he said, referring to other costumed Izzone notables. Cogswell says the suit, which includes a full hood that covers his entire face, is actually quite comfortable, allowing his body to breathe during games. When the Spartans are on the floor, he pulls the green fabric off his face for a better view. Cogswell bought the suit for Halloween in 2008 after seeing Charlie, a character on the FX series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," wear it. Rob McElhenney, who co-created and plays Mac on the FX show, saw possibly the first-ever green man in the parking lot of Lincoln Financial Field after a Philadelphia Eagles football game in 2006. The high-spirited, green character eventually made its way onto "Sunny," as college kids call the show, and green-man-mania took hold. The student section of nearly every Saturday-afternoon college football game features a skin-tight-suit-wearing student. Videos from YouTube place green men at Boston Celtics basketball games and Vancouver Canucks hockey games, sky diving and hanging out at a Texas renaissance fair. Cogswell rocked the suit at last year's NCAA National Championship Game between the Spartans and North Carolina in Detroit. The suit made an international appearance last summer when Cogswell studied in Harbin, China. In a country tinted red politically but not short on the zany and wacky, Cogswell decided to take the green suit along "just for kicks." "I wore it a few times to some clubs," he said. "They were all pretty freaked out." The suit has even made it onto Cogswell's resume. Under a section reserved for clubs and other extracurricular activities, he lists his role as Green Man. He thinks it helped land him an internship for next summer at Diageo Beverages in Plainfield, Ill. During an informal lunch, the company's director of procurement remembered Cogswell as the Green Man. "It leaves a lasting impression on some people," he said. Cogswell, who normally sits near mid-court opposite the teams' benches, plans to go to as many home games as possible this season and to cheer for his Spartans well into March Madness. He envisions finishing the regular season in the Top 10 nationally, raising another Big Ten Championship banner and going deep into the NCAA tournament. Published: Thu, Feb 11, 2010

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