The Handsome Dan Heist

“DOG GONE” blared the New York Times headline. An interview with the Princeton students who decided to pose as Yale cheerleaders in order to kidnap the famous mascot. Everything was going according to plan. Until the dog almost died. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Trickeration. Welcome to Trickeration, a production of I Heart Radio.
Welcome to the Trickeration podcast on i Heart Media, the
number one podcast about deception in sports. I'm your host, Matt.
Here each week with an honest conversation about a dishonest act, schemes, scams, hoaxes,

(00:23):
on field, cheating, off field pranks, whatever it is, we
are here to talk about it with people directly involved.
This week, we've got the story behind the kidnapping of
Handsome Dan, the Yale bulldog, and the inner details on
how the dog nappers pulled it off. All right, onto
the show. When you're years old, you think you're gonna

(00:51):
live forever and nothing can get you. Yes, there was
some risk of involved, but at the same time, the
downside was essentially meaningless. And it was one of my
singular accomplishments in college. There's not a long list of them.
It was a really fun time. I'm speaking with a
couple of Princeton grads class of eighty one, Scott Thompson,

(01:12):
a lawyer, and Jamie Herbert, who was an assistant U
S Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Jamie, do I
have that right? I can either confirm nor deny my
current place of employment. All right, I'll think that is yes.
And Scott, how did you and Jamie know each other?
At Princeton? We both participated in an informal club called
the Wednesday Night Club, which was a group of people

(01:34):
who were committed to the idea that getting drunk on
the weekends was not enough and that was pretty much
the entire purpose of the Wednesday Night Club. And Jamie
for the event that we're about to talk about, who
were the people involved? So it was Scott and me,
Rod Shepherd, who I think had the idea initially, and
another guy named Mark Hallum, who is the wheelman for this.

(01:56):
And how did you guys come up with this idea? Like?
What what too? This? I remember it very clearly. So
it was the Thursday before the game with Yale, and
I was walking through the campus and it was a
beautiful day and Rod was out in front of his
dorm just throwing the football around with some people, and
we started talking about the game, and we were talking

(02:19):
about how this used to be a big rivalry and
nobody cared anymore of total apathy, which probably had something
to do with the fact that we had lost to
Yale fourteen years straight, and so I'm pretty sure it
was Rod who said, you know, we got to do
something to fire up at the campus and get some
of the school spirit back. You know, we should go
and steal their bulldog or something, and I concurred. I

(02:40):
thought that was the appropriate course of action. And then
we just went over and had lunch, and Rod must
have announced that lunch that we decided to go steal
the Yale bulldog, and that met with some approval from
the table, and as a group of sitting around kind
of brainstorming, how do we even get to the point
of finding out where this dog actually is? And somebody
had read a Sports Illustrated piece that had talked about

(03:04):
how Yale had just appointed their first female handsome Dan,
whose real name is Bingo. Somebody got the idea that
we should start by calling up and see if we
can interview somebody at Yale. Unto the guys that being
a reporter, so we figured that the band probably knew
where the dog lived, and so we just called up

(03:25):
the main number for Yale and asked if we could
be connected at the band office, and to our great surprise,
they connected me to a room that appeared to be
the room where the band was rehearsing. I said, you know,

(03:48):
my name is Mike v l A m a reporter
with New West Magazine, and I'm doing a story on
college mascots. I said, you understand your your mascot's a bulldog. So, yes,
it is. I said, Now, is just a real bulldog
or is it somebody in a bulldog suit? I said, no,
it's it's a real bulldog. And you know, all the while,
there's all this noise in the background. You can hear

(04:09):
this guy put the phone down and yell, would you
guys keep it down. I'm talking to a reporter. So
he starts telling me about the mascot and I said,
it sounds great. Listen, I'm in New York and I've
got a photographer with me and I'd love to come
up and get some shots of members of the band
with a bulldog, you know, could we do that? He said, yeah,

(04:29):
that'll be fine. And I said, so you know who
keeps the bulldog? And he said, well, that's a retired
professor who has the bulldog. But there's a particular cheerleader
who's the point of contact with this professor. So he
gave me this guy's name and number. So we call
up to the cheerleader, you know, Mark Murphy or something,

(04:50):
and you know, let's go through the same sort of
thing with Murphy. We've got the name of the professor
at that point for Rolling osteroidse so hang up and
figure off. Next calls to the directory assistance asked for
the number for Rolling Osterwise. The number is one nine.
And by the time we called the professor was right

(05:11):
after dinner, like around, you know, and the professor answers
the phone Hello, and I said, Professor Osterwise, this is
Mark Murphy from the cheerleading squad, and we're just wondering
if some of us could come by and borrow bingo
for a photo shoot. And he said, yeah, that'd be fine. Mark,
What time do you want to come by? So at

(05:32):
that point where this mad scramble to figure how fast
can we get to New Haven? So I said, how
would nine o'clock be? He said, Chez Mark. You know,
Mrs Osterwise and I are kind of early to betters,
that's a little on the late side. I said, yeah,
I totally get that, but it won't take long. And
you know, we're kind of under the gun time Wise,
and he said, all right, that'd be fine, I'll see

(05:54):
at nine. So we we didn't even know where the
professor lived. We just figured better get up to new
Haven as fast as possible, and so that's what we did,
started driving to new Haven. But I do remember getting

(06:18):
into New Haven, we pulled over at a pay phone
and called directory assistance. At that point you could get
a live operator, and I said, can have the number
for Rolling Osterwise, which we already had. The operator gave
me the number, and I said, just to be sure

(06:40):
I got the right one. Is this the Osterwise on
Hodge Road? And she said no, it's the Osterwise on
Center Street and I said, well, that's right Center Street
and she said, no, twelve Center Street. So we had
the address, and then we just pulled into a gas
station and we said, can you give us directions the
centers right and they did, and then before we knew it,

(07:03):
we were pulling in front of Professor Osterwise's house really
at just about the stroke of nine o'clock. And since
you guys were supposed to be Yale cheerleaders, were you
guys wearing Yale sweatshirts or any Yale garb, we should
have had Yale sweaters on. I remember I was dressed
in somebody's three piece suit that somebody had loaned me
when they thought I was going to go up there
on the guys, and being a reporter, we figured reporters

(07:24):
must wear three piece suits. And just how nervous were you,
guys at this point? We were very nervous. For all
we knew. Professor osterwise knew what Mark Murphy looked like,
so you know, I think we were prepared to say, well,
you know, Mark couldn't make it at the last minute,
so he said us. But we knocked on the door
and after a short while you can hear the jingling
of a dog leash. The door opens and there's this

(07:49):
kindly retired professor with a bulldog at the end of
the leash. This is where I totally started to freak out.
He gives us to the dog and says, all right,
just have her back as soon as you can. And
we were standing its hallway. We start to get to
the front door to leave, and he had disappeared into
like a back kitchen, and we hear this voice from
the back say wait a minute, don't move, and I think, oh, man,

(08:14):
you know he's onto us the whole time he's called
the police. They're know we're gonna get arrested. And he
comes back with this box of dog biscuits and said,
you know, she won't do anything without these, And we
just took off and we started driving down back to school.

(08:39):
We'd imagine ourselves as being on the ten most Wanted
list at this point. From there into New York City,
we had people looking out for cops and we were
like on the edge of the seat, just watching for
the flashing lights or for any cops who might be
lying in wait and Scott, how was the dog handling
all of this? The dog was agitated. The dog was agitated.

(09:03):
We were also nervous because they have dog was panting
the whole time. We thought the dog was gonna die.
And the other thing I remember about the drive was
that that dog had really bad gas. I mean it
was almost a skunk like mechanism from this dog. I mean,
it's pretty cold night and it was not comfortable driving
with the windows down, but this dog was a very
gassy dog. And we had told the professor that we

(09:27):
would have the dog back in no more than an hour,
so we figured better stop about you at five minutes
down the road and just tell him what the scoop was.
So we pulled over to rest area around Stamford and
I get nominated to call him. Hello, Professor Asterwise, UM

(09:54):
just calling to let you know that um Bingo is
not coming back for a while. And without missing a beat,
this guy says, you're from Princeton, aren't you. And the
guy says, let me tell you something, son, You're about
to cross state lines with stolen property, and if you
don't bring that dog back right now, I'm calling the police.

(10:14):
So get back to the car and we have a
little huddle amongst the four of us as to what
to do. I mean, had this gone too far? Should
we just put an end to it? Or should we
go on? And once we took the vote and we
decided to continue, we were pretty committed at that point,
all right. So what happens when you guys get back
to Princeton. You have to go through one of the gates,
and there was campus police at each of the gates,

(10:36):
and by then the people from Yale probably would have
called and said, you know, be on the lookout for
a car with a dog. So we got up this big,
heavy wool blanket and covered up the dog and they
waved us right on. So we're sitting there, apartment, and
we figure, what's a prank without publicity? So we called

(10:57):
the New York Times and asked for the sports desk
and we at somebody on the sports desk at the time,
and I said, I've got a big scoop for you,
and he said, all right, what is it? And I said, well,
we're from Princeton and we've just stolen the Yale Bulldog.
And there's a pause and the guy goes so and
I said, well, so I think your readers would like

(11:17):
to know about this, and he said, let me tell
you something, Pal. I went to St. John's and we
used to steal the Fordham Ram all the time, and
that never made the New York Times. And your bulldog
isn't gonna make the New York Times either. I called
the AP and I get somebody from the sports desk
of the AP and he loves it. He said, I
give me all the details. And the next morning, we're

(11:39):
sitting around at breakfast and somebody hands us the sports
section of the New York Times and just above the
ap by line is a picture of handsome Dan under
the headline dog on, so they handed up picking up
the ap story. The plan was to return the dog
on Saturday at halftime of the big game. By Friday night,

(12:00):
we knew that there were Yelli's around who were looking
to try and find the dog, So we ended up
driving her down to the Friday evening football practice and
there's a lot of dancing around her and shouting and
trying to spook her, which didn't lower her stress level.
And throughout this whole thing, how concerned were you about

(12:21):
potential disciplinary action, Like was this something that could have
led to being expelled or you knew this was totally
small potatoes. So I think we all felt pretty comfortable
that as long as nothing crazy went wrong and we
gave the dog back, it would be okay. But we
also did try to make sure that we were not
readily identifiable. We got the biggest guys we could find,

(12:45):
the crew guys and the athletes. Those were guys who
were about six five. They were involved in the return
of the dog, so that in the event that there
was a fight or any kind of physical altercation, we
would have the muscle on our side. Originally, we were
planning to runner out in front of our tam at
the beginning of the second half, and we decided that
would be suboptimal if we were to run her out

(13:05):
and she were to expire in front of the fans
that were there for the game. At halftime, the score
was not at a ten and it was time to
return Handsome Dan to the Yale cheerleaders. So it was
walked across the field, and of course the dog was
returned with a Princeton scarf, an orange and black scarf
tied around its neck, which was you know, the hostage

(13:26):
return on the bridge. And so when people realize what
was going on, was there a big reaction in the stands.
There's definitely a lot of noise from the stands. It
was a great cheer when they saw what was going on.
And in fact, the dog was returned to the Yale cheerleaders.
They were not nice, they were rude. Failed to see
the humor in it. But at the time the game
was closed too, as I recalled, and it turned into

(13:48):
a wrong Yeah, we fired up the team. The only
problem was it was a wrong team. Yale blasted Princeton
in the second half and extended their wind streak with
a thirty five to ten victory. Once the smoke cleared
and it was clear we weren't going to get in
a book, we figured we'd better do something nice for
Professor Asteroids. I remember we sent him a nice bottle
of wine and some cigars and he something back. He

(14:08):
could not have been nicer about the whole thing, Yeah,
he said, but it was ingenious what we had done,
which you know, we felt pretty good about. If some
obnoxious college kids tricked me into giving up my dog,
I would not have been as gracious as Professor Asteroids.
And did the Princeton administration ever find out who was
involved and if so, was any disciplinary action ever handed down?

(14:30):
There was a There was the guy who was the
dean of student affairs, and we did get wind that
they knew who was involved, but was exercising his discretion
not to take any disciplinary action. And I think that
was partly due to the fact that there was another
revered member of the administration. I think he was the
campus historian and he loved it. So he had been

(14:52):
around for prior bulldog kidnapping incidents and he just loved
the fact that the tradition was being revived. Uh. I
think he probably had a hand in keeping us from
getting into any serious trouble. All of this just feels
like it was from the same era as Animal House,
Like that's late seventies, early eighties period. Why do you

(15:13):
guys think this kind of stuff doesn't really go on anymore?
I don't know why. I think times have changed that
you don't. You just don't see this kind of thing
happening these days. You know, as I see my kids
have all come through college, I can't imagine them doing this.
And I think people tend to total line a little
bit more these days. Everybody is so much more concerned about,

(15:34):
you know, making the record that's going to propel them
from one station to the next. And I think we
have the luxury of being at the tail end of
not really caring as much about that, and I think
we weren't as concerned about what the consequences might be.
But for the future, I think that is valid, and
I think everyone probably does need to lighten up a
little bit more, and I include myself and that. But

(15:56):
you know, then the world in general, it's gotten more serious.
And did this dog napping have any effects for either
of you guys down the road? Like were you able
to tap into this kind of sinister planning with anything else.
Senior year, when we were interviewing for jobs and various
employers were coming through doing interviews on campus, and remember
an interview with the CIA, and the CIA interviewer said,

(16:19):
what would you say you're most proud of? So I
told the bulldog story. I figured, you know, if there's
one employer that could probably appreciate the scheming that went
into this, it would be then. I think she was
initially a little surprised that I told the story, but
then kind of nodded approvingly. And I know both you
guys worked for the government. At one point, do you
preemptively say, oh, yeah, there was this whole dog napping

(16:40):
thing so it doesn't pop up in a background check.
I'm quite sure Scott and I both forgot to mention
it when we were applying for jobs with the Department
of Justice. Yeah, that didn't that didn't come up. Alright,
That is it for to his episode of Big Thanks

(17:01):
to Scott and Jamie. And if you or someone you
know is considering stealing a rival animal mascot, I hope
this serves his inspiration. A reminder to listeners please subscribe
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at it, might as well rate and review and share
and all that good stuff. And as we do every week,
we check in with the legend Chris, Matt, Doug Russo,

(17:22):
Chris had we do this week? Maddie, good job, keep
up to good work. Cow Thanks Chris, all right, talk
to you next week. Triggeration is a production of my
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