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Viktor the Viking has become a staple for the Des Moines community and especially here at Grand View. Viktor has attended Iowa Cubs events where other mascots from across Iowa joined, elementary reading events and of course all things GV, including the 2021 NAIA Football National Championships where he had a dance battle with the Morningside Mascot. But who has been behind the mask? The answer is a Senior at Indianola High School, Jacob Butz.

It all started four years ago when Stacie Horton, the head coach for the GV dance team, was looking for someone to wear the Viktor costume at home football games.

Laurie Butz, Jacob’s mom and a GV completion coach said, “I just asked, ‘would you let a high schooler do it?’ And she said, ‘will he fit the suit?’” The high school freshman at the time was able to fit into Viktor, which got the ball rolling for the next four years and more. Due to GV having Jacob, who is the official “behind the mask” person, Viktor has been able to attend more events than before to build community relationships and bring more publicity to the university.

“He’s gung ho to do absolutely anything,” Horton said. “He loves to make public appearances… he’s gone down to Cubbie’s birthday party, a car show in Beaverdale, he was on campus for the first day of school.”

These appearances won’t stop once Jacob graduates from high school since he now plans on attending GV to major in education and he did an official signing to be Viktor in college.

“I feel like I’ve always been a Viking. I’ve been coming to games since I was a kid,” Jacob said.

There were many people in attendance to Jacob’s signing, including his family, cheer coach Nick Black, Stacie Horton and President Keck.

“It was a historic day for Grand View as this was our first signing day for our university mascot, and I’m glad we were able to commemorate the day with a formal signing,” President Keck said.

I went to read at McKinley elementary with Jacob/Viktor which was interesting to see behind the scenes and the transformation between the two personalities. Jacob is a classic high schooler with a big personality and crack’s jokes left and right. However, once he puts the mask on it’s all “fun and business” as all of the attention turns to kids and fans to entertain. At the elementary reading, each kid in the hallways to the classroom got a fist-bump, along with each kid in the classroom. To me, this is where I see a huge difference between Viktor and other mascots since his number one priority is to interact and not just entertain, which can be seen at all events he attends.

It will be exciting to see Viktor in the coming years as he appears at more GV and community events.

“One of those who’s wise beyond his years,” Horton said. “He’s just a really dedicated and kind guy and loves Grand View. So, we got the right guy for the job.”