12 OCTOBER 10-16, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | tirement, he saw an obvious replacement in Drake, and he says the Nuggets liked the idea. COVID delayed those plans, though, so Kenn stayed on as Rocky through the 2020- 2021 season. Because of pandemic safety restrictions, Rocky stayed in one place during every game. As a result, Kenn says, his fi nal season felt like a fl op. Then the Nuggets were eliminated after a series sweep by the Phoenix Suns. “I stood there with tears running down my face. And all of a sudden, the crowd, still sticking around, trying to take in the last part of the season, all started chanting ‘Rocky,’” Kenn recalls. “And then the announcer said, in kind of a cracked voice, because he knew what was going on, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for your SuperMascot, Rocky.’” The summer after that disappointing end to what Kenn thought was his fi nal season, Drake contracted a serious case of COVID, landing in the hospital for fi ve days. “I was on oxygen. I was getting pumped full of steroids,” he says. After getting out of the hospital, Drake, who remained on oxygen for two more weeks, developed pain in his legs from what was diagnosed as acute arthritis. But he recovered in time to try out to be- come Rocky. It was a closed tryout, with just Drake auditioning. “They’ve known me for ten years, and they know I’ve been working toward this,” he says. “They wanted to still go through a tryout process. They wanted to make me feel like I earned it.” During the tryout, Drake performed fi ve skits, dunked, shot from half-court, walked on stilts and danced. A week later, he got a call from the Nuggets that he had the gig. With his lungs still recovering from CO- VID, the Nuggets offered Drake a contin- gency employment agreement, which lasted until December 31 of that year. “Just to make sure that I’d be able to handle it and I was going to fulfi ll the duties,” he notes. But Drake’s fi rst night went off without a hitch, and the weeks that followed went well, too. By the end of the year, the Nuggets had offered him a regular contract, without any contingencies. “And then the rest of the season went really well,” he says. “I had some really good skits.” Kenn was still employed by the Nuggets, serving as an offi cial mentor for Drake as he got comfortable in the Rocky suit, accompa- nying his son to games. “Drake was miles ahead of where I was when I fi rst started. He was pro material fi rst day. I was still college material when I jumped in there,” Kenn recalls. Cade signed on as Rocky’s assistant. “His fi rst year, he crushed it. And we had a lot of fun doing it,” Cade says. During Drake’s fi rst season as Rocky, word began to trickle out that Kenn Solomon, the man who’d portrayed Rocky since 1990, was no longer in the suit, replaced by his son. “I felt very strongly that the public should know. ... They didn’t even have to say my name,” Kenn says. “I really felt it was im- portant for the new guy, because I’ve seen turnover so much over the years and how hard it is for the individual fi lling the costume to come in and fi ll the shoes of an established character. I just wanted the best scenario for my son.” Contacted by Westword in November 2021, representatives of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Nuggets, refused to confi rm that a switch had been made. “It defi nitely felt different,” says fan Hess. The COVID version of Rocky had seemed weird because the mascot was required to stay in one place in the arena, but Rocky still seemed off to some fans. The vibes and man- nerisms were less familiar, and the mascot seemed to struggled with the backward half-court shot. “That’s all anything anybody ever talked about, was the half-court shot,” Drake says. “Anytime I missed, whether it was fans or my bosses or whatever, it was like, ‘Well, your dad always made it.’” Drake worked hard on that half-court shot, practicing on the University of Denver basketball court; he thought he had a pretty good percentage his fi rst year. But there were bigger challenges ahead. Drake felt confi dent going into his second season as Rocky. Fans had high hopes for the Nuggets, too. A few weeks into the season, however, Drake began feeling pain in his right hip, which he chalked up to routine muscle soreness. “After a while, it turned into a daily pain,” he says. “Sometimes I would get out of bed and my leg would give out. I wasn’t able to walk.” The pain got so extreme that in January 2023, Drake went to see a doctor, who diag- nosed him with avascular necrosis: Drake’s femur bones weren’t getting enough blood fl ow, causing them to degenerate. Doctors speculated that negative effects from the steroid treatment Drake was given when he contracted COVID might have contributed to the bone degeneration. Drake told the Nuggets what was hap- pening and came up with a plan. He would spend a few more games as Rocky before going under the knife. Once he landed on the injured reserve, Kenn could step back into the Rocky suit for the rest of the season. Since Kenn’s offi cial fi nal season as Rocky Hear Him Roar continued from page 10 Kenn Solomon made the Mascot Hall of Fame. EVAN SEMÓN
