<-- This is the REAL Hot Dog Man...check out to see if anyone else may be hiding in that suit.









So there was supposed to be another column on SIOnCampus.com about my time at the World Cup, but my editor wouldn't run it. I guess it wasn't really about the World Cup....but then again, when has anything I've ever written at the Cav Daily actually fit in the section it ran in?






(Case in point: I wrote a Sports game column about Tom trying to sneak a buddy into the GT game by walking in tandem in his hot dog suit: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?ID=25209&pid1367, but then wrote about Big Time Ballard's no-hitter in Life: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?ID=26886&pid1438).

So after spending a significant amount of time writing this, I'm just going to put in on the blog so that my mommy can write me an email reassuring me about my bright future as a writer!
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By Bayless Parsley
University of Virginia
Sports Illustrated On Campus (VOID)

The Real Hot Dog Man

Last week, I paid over $400 to see Team USA get rolled by the Czech Republic in the Stadion Gelsenkirchen, and it wasn’t too much fun. Five days later, I paid $0 to watch a 1-1 draw with Italy from the streets of Kaiserslautern, and it was about as fun as fun can be.

I may have gotten a C in ECON 201, but this cost-benefit analysis is one even a history major like me can compute with ease. Until Team USA gets run from the tournament, I’m watching the World Cup on the streets – for free.

Next up is the death match with Ghana, and I’ll be in the streets of Nuremberg, decked out as always in full costume, ready to rock. After two tremendous showings in the Halloween-like party that is the World Cup, you know Hot Dog Man (World Cup Edition) is going to keep it real.

That’s how the real Hot Dog Man would have wanted it, after all.

That man is sitting at home right now, just outside of Philadelphia, wishing he could be where six of his best friends have been for the past two weeks: Europe. We’re living it up on a graduation trip four years in the making, and the dude everybody loves, Thomas Raymond Kuklinski, can only read about it in the emails we send state-side.

Known to some as plain old Tom, and by others as good old TK, it was he who dropped $100 on eBay to buy a six-foot hot dog suit in December 2003 … not yours truly. Initially finding little to no use for the foam-and-felt pullover in his day-to-day life, it wasn’t long before Tom got the gears turning.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. But when life gives you a foam-and-felt representation of amalgamated animal byproducts, you wear it to all of UVa’s home basketball games, and go by the name of “Hot Dog Man” when doing so.

At least that’s what Tom thinks.

Standing tall at 6’5”, Hot Dog Man never missed a game after his debut against Maryland near the end of the 2004 season. Co-founder of the rag-tag Virginia student fan club known as “Team Halloween,” which varied in size from just Tom, to Tom plus 20 other costumed maniacs, Hot Dog Man even appeared at a few Cavalier football and baseball games during his time in the suit.
By the time we graduated in May 2006, Hot Dog Man was a minor celebrity at UVa, capable of creating a minor stir.

That is the story of the real Hot Dog Man.

It’s only out of respect for him that I make sure to always include the words “World Cup Edition” in parentheses when discussing my nom de guerre.

Racked by a mountain of debt from some hefty student loans, and coupled with the fact that he leaves for South Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer in mid-July, Tom had to tap out in the late stages of planning for Germany 2006. But before we left Charlottesville for good, he handed me something very special to his heart.

“I want you to wear the hot dog suit at the World Cup,” he told me. “For me. And take pictures. I want to see Hot Dog Man appear in as many famous European spots as possible.”

“Your wish is my command, Hot Dog Man,” I said, clutching the suit that is now worth infinitesimally more than the $90 plus $10 shipping and handling TK spent on it some two and a half years ago.

He had no idea what he had gotten that suit into.

The reception I got from fans across the world during my debut in Gelsenkirchen was impressive; the Hot Dog Mania I encountered in Kaiserslautern was Beckham-esque. Hot Dog Man (World Cup Edition) was the toast of K-Town.

There were the longtime fans: “Hey, hot dog guy!” an American dude yelled early in the afternoon. “Again!”

Then, there were the inquisitive children: “Do you eat yourself?” an eight-year-old troublemaker asked, cracking himself up to his heart’s delight.

The inevitable paparazzi: “Stand right there, Hot Dog Man. Look into the camera,” a Fox Sports photographer requested kindly as my friend and I posed with staged smiles. “Come on, man! Look excited!” (We then started screaming “U-S-A!” at the top of our lungs and having forced spasms).

And finally, there were the hordes of beautiful woman: “Meesta Veenah! Meesta Veenah!” a pretty young frauline screamed from a few meters away. “Can I take a peek-chah vis you?” (Access granted – anything for my fans).

What better way to pour one out for a homey left behind than to set him up for the next time we all take a trip to the world’s greatest Halloween party? Back-to-back Cup appearances for Meesta Veenah would all but lock up his spot in the World Cup Costume Hall of Fame.

That will be four years from now in South Africa, a place TK should know well after two-and-a-half years spent in the Peace Corps. Before the opening whistle of Team USA’s World Cup run blows in June 2010, look for Hot Dog Man on the streets of Cape Town, Johannesburg or Pretoria, rocking out and posing for photos. But don’t be fooled by the pictures from Germany; he won’t look like me this next time around. That’s because during South Africa 2010, the toast of the Cup will be the real Hot Dog Man, with his loyal deputy standing by his side.

But before that day comes, that loyal deputy will be representing Team Halloween’s leader in Nuremberg.