![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2023\/03\/DC--883x1024.jpg\")
\u201c溏心vlog免费B站 is in everything for us because that’s how we met. It’s the foundation of who we are,\u201d says Cortney \u201901, chief executive officer and president of United Way of Rhode Island and a member of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Board of Trustees. \u201cIt’s where it all began. I think that has been interwoven into our relationship in many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re crazy enough that we somehow developed an affinity for the University through the mascot program,\u201d adds David \u201998, a former assistant director of alumni relations at 溏心vlog免费B站. \u201cWe had the time of our lives at school because we were able to don a suit, have fun and show school pride. You have to have school pride if you need an IV injected in you for fluids after an appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, Cortney and David live in nearby Saunderstown with their sons Jacob, 15, and Ian, 12. They celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary in February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2023\/03\/Walk-2-Rams-in-Love-1024x680.jpg\")
But it wasn\u2019t a love at first sight story, David says. When they met in 1996, Cortney Mahoney was a \u201ccocky little thing\u201d (Cortney prefers \u201cresourceful\u201d) from Pawtucket and David Nicolato was a New Jersey kid who ran the mascot program as part of the student alumni association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she came to 溏心vlog免费B站 from St. Raphael Academy, Cortney was looking for an activity she could do while working and going to school full-time. In high school, she was very active, playing sports, captaining the cheerleading team and serving on the student council. Her cousin had been Rhody and thought she\u2019d really like it. \u201cI had to work full-time to pay for school, but at the same time, I wanted to feel a connection to the university,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the mascot program was a mystery. No one was supposed to know who Rhody the Ram was. So she went into \u201cresource mode,\u201d investigating how to join the mascot program. She learned David ran it. She also learned he was a resident assistant in Hopkins Hall, where her boyfriend also lived. That\u2019s when the cockiness kicked in, perhaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, I just showed up,\u201d says Cortney, with some good-natured ribbing. \u201cDavid was sitting against a wall and I came right up to him and said I hear you run the mascot program. You could tell he was kind of taken off-guard. He was like, \u2018What do you mean?\u2019 I said I know you run the program. He finally admitted it and said, \u2018Well, you\u2019re going to have to try out.\u2019 He was kind of a jerk. I\u2019m not going to lie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were never really any tryouts at that time,\u201d confesses David. \u201cI was just putting her through the ringer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she started, Cortney, a mascot for all four years, handled women\u2019s games, the occasional football game on hot September days, and numerous weddings and other events \u2013 eventually moving up to men\u2019s basketball games. David, a mascot for three years, had advanced to working the marque sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David says to be a mascot then you had to be resourceful, coming up with your own equipment for on-court stunts. At the time, mascots received no compensation or scholarship. You needed to be athletic and tolerant of a Rhody suit that was hot and smelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David says that while there was no pay, being a Ram was a good weight-loss program. \u201cYou lost between 5 and 10 pounds, just in sweat.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And each mascot worked up their own schtick. Cortney liked to dance a lot, take pictures and sign autographs with children, and belly slide like a penguin across the court into cheerleader megaphones. David, who practiced five nights a week with the coed cheerleading team, preferred stunts \u2013 topping off pyramids and slam dunking using a mini-trampoline he\u2019d cart to games (until he sprained his ankle).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were there to have fun. We were there to engage the audience,\u201d says Cortney. \u201cWe were there to get tossed up by the cheerleaders and slide down the stairs on a sled. While I was in business school and working, I was the only one in a business suit on a rainy day. The mascot program was my way of just having fun, and when I took off the suit, I went back to the responsibilities I had. No one knew the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That anonymity \u2013 being quiet in the suit and unknown out of it \u2013 was attractive to David, who says being a mascot helped him come out of his shell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven today, I don\u2019t volunteer the fact that I was the mascot,\u201d he says. \u201cThe next day after a game, you would hear the stories about how Rhody slam-dunked the ball and you knew they were talking about you, but you never said anything. For me, it was an outlet just to have fun and be a nut without getting into trouble for it. It was a phenomenal experience.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their highlights as mascots center on travel and taking part in high-profile events. David helped run men\u2019s basketball Midnight Madness, which was shown on ESPN, and traveled to three of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s men\u2019s basketball NCAA games during the Rams\u2019 Elite Eight run in 1998. Cortney\u2019s include seeing the Rams win the Atlantic 10 Tournament title on Lamar Odom\u2019s last-minute shot and appearing in ESPN commercials that featured mascots from numerous schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along with building memories, David and Cortney, who also became a resident assistant in Hopkins Hall, built a camaraderie based on their mutual secret of being mascots. \u201cRhody led to building our relationship,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was the starting point. I think that’s why it’s still a part of who we are as a couple all these years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDavid used to throw out the worst pickup lines ever. Now he’s taught our children these ridiculous pickup lines,\u201d she ribs. \u201cHe\u2019s still convinced to this day that’s what wooed me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After graduating from 溏心vlog免费B站, David went to work in alumni relations at Clark University in Worcester, but they kept in touch. After Cortney and her longtime boyfriend broke up, she and David exchanged emails and made plans to meet for lunch and catch up. They made plans to meet again when he was down from New Jersey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt happened to be Sept. 11, 2001,\u201d says Cortney, who was working as a technology consultant at the time. \u201cI was working in the tallest building in downtown Providence, so I was evacuated that morning. I lost a friend on one of the planes. So the day was really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David called and asked if she still wanted to get together for dinner. They met at a restaurant in Garden City, Cranston, and had the best conversation, she says. \u201cThe reason why I was comfortable having dinner on that absolutely awful day was because I knew he was going to make me laugh and I knew he was going to find a way to normalize what was an incredibly unnormal day,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that if you ever see a video of David as Rhody, that character is who he is in real life and was on that day \u2013 warm, funny and engaging,\u201d she adds. \u201cThat was the moment when I felt, holy cow, he\u2019s been in front of me the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their first date was 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Blue and White Ball. Three years later, they got engaged at the Blue and White Ball. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though their mascot days are long over, the University still plays a central role in their lives. When they were living in Texas and had the opportunity to move back for Cortney\u2019s role at United Way, one of the pros was being close to campus. They hold season tickets in women\u2019s basketball and football and attend numerous men\u2019s basketball games, along with other campus events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe wanted our kids to see what a fantastic place it is,\u201d says David, who followed a love of fixing things to start a handyman business, My RI Handyman. \u201cSo the kids can go eat Albie\u2019s cheese fries or we\u2019ll go to a Fine Arts event. We are the quintessential alum family that will take half the family down to Wilmington, Delaware, to support the women\u2019s basketball team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also helped pay it forward for future Rhodys, providing one of the first donations to the Rhody the Ram Endowment, which provides scholarships to the student volunteers who serve as Rhody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are forever grateful for our time as Rhody because it brought us together and, as a result, we have built this beautiful life and family,\u201d Cortney says. \u201cAnd on the 100th birthday of Rhody, we are thankful that we are a small part of the history of this iconic mascot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 8, 2023 \u2013 It\u2019s written in stone: \u201c2 Rams in Love, Cortney and David.\u201d You can find that inscription on a brick in the middle of the Century Walk on the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s historic quadrangle. It\u2019s just part of the story of David and Cortney Nicolato \u2013 perhaps the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":84171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84168"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84181,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84168\/revisions\/84181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}