{"id":16887,"date":"2022-03-02T23:29:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T05:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16887"},"modified":"2022-03-24T12:54:33","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T18:54:33","slug":"buff-the-bison-to-retire-after-12-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2022\/03\/02\/buff-the-bison-to-retire-after-12-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Buff the Bison to retire after 12 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo by Madison Meyer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin Dunning, commonly known at Harding as Buff the Bison, was recognized at the basketball senior ceremony Feb. 24 for his final season after representing the school for 12 years as its beloved mascot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buff said he was glad that people were having a great time during his final seasons. He said it is time for him to graduate and retire, but that he is happy he finally made the decision to do it in a good year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad they\u2019ve welcomed me for a long time,\u201d Buff said. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to tell them thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robbie Dunning, Buff\u2019s mom and trained coach\/handler, said he has been a mascot for 19 years total. Before he was Buff, he not only was Buzz the Hornet at his high school, but also Freddy Cougar at his community college and two other mascots on the side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe considers himself part of the team he represents, so if it\u2019s football season, he\u2019s part of the football team,\u201d Dunning said. \u201cIf it\u2019s volleyball, he\u2019s part of the volleyball team. He has always wanted to be part of a championship team.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunning said Buff had a feeling this would be the year the football team would win their championship. She said Buff wanted to go out on a high note with the team and decided it was the right time for him to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunning said Buff has been part of nearly 25 different organizations at Harding, representing the school in various departments like admissions and \u2014 of course \u2014 athletics. She said Buff has also helped with several nonprofits such as Special Olympics and Make-a-Wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe works tirelessly with all different kinds of organizations and at all different types of events,\u201d Harding Sports Information Director Scott Goode said. \u201cHe\u2019s been a great ambassador for Harding University, and we\u2019re really gonna miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goode said Buff works harder than most people might expect from a mascot, especially during hotter months that could make football games close to 100 degrees. Buff\u2019s costume is 40 degrees higher than the environment he is performing in, Dunning said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goode said saying goodbye to Buff is sad because he knows it will no longer be him inside the costume, but that he is excited for him to move on to whatever is next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll just be different,\u201d Goode said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be strange that the person that I know as Buff is not inside the Buff costume anymore. It\u2019s somebody new that will have big shoes to fill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harding had a mascot for a while before Austin Dunning became Buff, Goode said, but none of the people before him really stuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe brought a whole new level of enthusiasm and passion to Harding athletic events from the first time that he got here,\u201d Goode said. \u201cI\u2019ve been so excited to see him do what he wanted to do and have a great career at Harding. I look forward to seeing what he does next. There\u2019s no telling what it\u2019s going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buff said his time as Harding\u2019s mascot flew by faster than he expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be here for 12 years, it doesn\u2019t seem like 12 years at all \u2014 it seems more like five,\u201d Buff said. \u201cIf I could do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Dunning, commonly known at Harding as Buff the Bison, was recognized at the basketball senior ceremony Feb. 24 for his final season after representing the school for 12 years as its beloved mascot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15198,"featured_media":16884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16888,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16887\/revisions\/16888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}