10 OCTOBER 10-16, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | crazy basketball shots from atop tall ladders. He rollerbladed off ramps to dunk. He even put Rocky’s balls on the line by landing his crotch directly on a balance beam to re-cre- ate “The Nutcracker.” And Kenn sacrifi ced the rest of his body, too, sometimes fi nishing games needing supplemental oxygen and IV drips in his changing room. His daredevil actions came back to bite him in 1995, when, during a preseason game performance, he attempted a trampoline dunk. The trampoline slipped, Kenn landed hard on the court, and he broke his back. After a hospital trip, Rocky landed on the injured reserve. “The town really rallied. The news kept ask- ing and kept wanting to do interviews. I think it was Channel 9 that actually interviewed me in the hospital. I put the head on and I spoke,” Kenn says. “At that point, I realized this was a little bit bigger than playing dress-up.” After missing a few games, Rocky re- turned, much to the delight of the crowds who had really missed their mascot. During the ’90s, the Nuggets put together some truly bad teams. In the 1997-98 season, Denver won just eleven games. But Rocky kept the show going. “Through all those really terrible Nuggets years, he’s what people talked about. He was the entertainment,” Lisa Whittaker says. As part of that entertainment, Kenn added a backwards half-court shot to his repertoire. “I started sinking some, and then it became an every-game thing. And then from there it became a sponsored thing. That meant that I had to do it every game,” he recalls. “That had some real pressure.” But even with companies sponsoring the backward half-court shot, which helped keep fans in their seats as games were wind- ing down, the real money came from wagers on whether Rocky would sink the shot. “Players were betting on it, fans were betting on it, coaches were betting on it,” Kenn says, noting that he usually fi nished the season hitting the shot in more than 50 percent of the games. “That half-court shot is so iconic,” says Altitude’s McKee, who frequently fi lms and tweets out videos of Rocky performing the shot. “The fact it ever goes in just blows me away. ... I hope people don’t take for granted how diffi cult that shot is to make.” And Rocky did have some dry spells. Kenn remembers one season in which he missed the shot eleven games in a row. “I would get so booed. And one game, I actually lost it. Like truly, I’m just pissed. And so as I walk off the court, I grab somebody’s popcorn and I threw it,” he says. Kenn acknowledges that he could be dif- fi cult to work with. His desire to entertain the crowd often took precedence over what a sponsor might have wanted or what his bosses said was acceptable. But more often than not, his approach worked. His supervi- sors would crack up at his edgy skits, and the crowd would go wild. “I got in a groove to where I was just hav- ing fun,” he says. Outside the suit, Kenn was getting in the groove, too. He and his then-wife had three boys: Garett, Drake and Cade. Each became members of Rocky’s pride before they could crawl. “They have been on the court with me since they were each two weeks old,” Kenn says. “Sometimes they were Santa’s elves. Sometimes they were little Rockys and we were all the Village People.” “Growing up, our life kind of revolved around Rocky. We were dropped off to school in the Rockymobile. We went to sporting events and soccer games in the Rockymo- bile,” says Cade Solomon, now 29, referring to his father’s car, which was always decked out in Rocky decals. As the Nuggets dribbled into the 2000s, Rocky continued to reign supreme in the mascot world. The team drafted Carmelo Anthony in 2003 and became a strong com- petitor in the Western Conference. At the same time, Kenn’s sons were get- ting more involved in the sports world. Cade worked as a ball boy for the Nuggets while he was in high school, later becoming Rocky’s assistant. Garett, now 31, tried portraying a mascot in high school and felt like he was a dud. But performing was in his genes. He earned a mascot scholarship to help pay for col- lege before ultimately landing a role as Moondog, the mascot of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He’s now Hooper, the mascot of the Detroit Pistons. “My dad is still the guy I go to when I’m looking for a cre- ative brain,” says Garett. “When there’s obstacles in the way, he can see past it.” Drake, now thirty, took a job with the Nuggets right after high school, joining the team’s promo squad, which is best known for throwing out T-shirts during game breaks. On the rare occasion that his father couldn’t attend an event as Rocky, Drake suited up. “I stepped in at nineteen, and that’s when I kind of fell in love with Rocky. From nineteen years old on, I’ve always been backup for my dad,” he says. Drake has stepped into plenty of other famous mascot suits, too. When mascots celebrate their birthdays, the other NBA mascots come to town. When one can’t make it, someone fi lls in. That gave Drake the chance to play Clutch, the mascot bear for the Houston Rockets, as well as Boomer, the cat mascot for the Indiana Pacers, and other characters. Eventually, Drake worked his way up to becoming his father’s assistant during both games and appearances. The plan to have him take over for Kenn one day began forming. Professional sports teams typically go to great lengths to keep the identities of their mascots secret. And mascots of Kenn’s generation usually oblige, as that was part of the mascot code. “It was for the benefi t of the character, the benefi t of the brand,” says Scott Hesington, who points out that professional mascots today do a much better job of promoting themselves both inside and outside the suit. Recognizing their value, mascots in recent years have demanded that they be allowed to promote themselves. But Kenn didn’t attempt to do that while fi lling Rocky’s paws. And the Nuggets tried to keep everything about the person inside the suit as quiet as possible. “We’ve always had to keep it secret,” says Cade. “We’re all pretty quiet people. We don’t go showing that off to everybody. But word got around just naturally.” There was that time in fi rst grade when his teacher made him stand up in the middle of class and tell everyone what his dad did for work, for example. “So, of course, in el- ementary school, people just kind of knew,” Cade says. If there was any pretense that Rocky’s identity could stay secret, that vanished early in the 2002-2003 NBA season when Kenn was arrested in Arapahoe County, after what he calls an “argument” between him and his ex-wife led to his being arrested on charges of trespassing and harassment. The Associated Press reported the in- cident: “Sheriff’s deputies said Solomon arrived unexpectedly at the doctor’s offi ce and asked to be present while the doctor saw his children. He and the doctor argued, and Solomon’s former wife left with the children, authorities said. Solomon allegedly followed them to their home and entered the garage before his former wife could close the door, deputies said.” Since the arrest was for charges categorized as domestic violence, Kenn spent the weekend in jail...and his name and role as Rocky were blasted out everywhere. “I thought my career was over,” he recalls. “I thought that to save face, they would have to fi re me.” But the Nuggets stood by him. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed the harassment charge, and Kenn received a two-year deferred prosecution sentence for the trespassing charge, according to Eric Ross, a spokesperson for the District Attor- ney’s Offi ce for the 18th Judicial District. In 2005, that trespassing charge was dismissed. “That’s a little stain on Google, but I can honestly say I can sleep at night. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Kenn says. Rocky made the news again in 2013, after Kenn passed out while being lowered onto the court; a costume mishap caused the collar to yank on his neck as he was descending. “It was like an MMA chokehold,” he says. He hit the ground, motionless. “When I got down, the rope loosened up and blood started fl owing. I came to pretty quick,” Kenn recalls. Nuggets employees prevented him from continuing that night. But after an MRI and a full medical screen- ing, He was able to start back up a few days later. Rocky made the news in a more awkward way just before the start of the NBA season in 2014: “Nuggets’ mascot Rocky surprises bosses with GOP rally appearance,” a Denver Post headline announced. Kenn explains his presence at the GOP rally as a nuanced situa- tion. He was “working the crowd beforehand” and not actually present for the rally itself, he says; since he had gotten permission in 2012 to attend an event before a Mitt Romney rally as Rocky, he thought it would be okay. The Nuggets weren’t happy. And Kenn didn’t attend a par- tisan political event after that. In 2014, the Nuggets drafted Nikola Jokic, a center out of Serbia, in the second round of the NBA draft. Two years later, the team drafted Jamal Mur- ray, a guard from the University of Kentucky. The two players began forming the core of what would turn into a powerhouse team, catapulting the Nuggets to the top of the NBA. Even as the Nuggets began growing into a winning team, Kenn’s bosses approached him about his retirement. “How about you retire in 2019 or 2020?” he remembers them saying. Kenn made a good living working a job he loved. Periodically during his career, he’d leaked word to a local reporter when his contract as Rocky was ending and he wanted the Nuggets to pay up or he would walk. “He was one of the fi rst mascots to know how to market himself in the company. He was a trendsetter in that way,” says Hesington. But generally, Kenn kept quiet about his role. Aside from his regular mascot work at games, he was also paid to make appearances as Rocky around the world. News stories have reported that Rocky made $625,000 a year. “I’m neither going to confi rm nor deny,” Kenn says of that fi gure. “But I think the point is, the Nuggets always took care of me.” Now eyeing re- Hear Him Roar continued from page 8 Kenn Solomon as Rocky celebrates the 2023 NBA championship. EVAN SEMÓN continued on page 12
