Timmy Eads arrived at the airport with his powder horn and coonskin hat, fully prepared for quizzical looks and strange questions from TSA workers. He had emptied his powder horn ahead of time, of course, but he still imagined he was one of the weirdest-looking air travelers to pass through security on that July day.



“If anything, they were more interested in the hat,” Eads says.



Interstate travel with a firearm is just one of the unique logistical hurdles mascots like Eads, who took over as West Virginia’s famed mountaineer in April, must clear on a regular basis. It’s more than showing up to a game. When you’re a mascot, you’re in demand.



That goes double for the Mountaineer, the scraggly bearded, rifle-toting mascot for the flagship school of a state with no major professional sports teams, who looks like a man who must fight for his own survival in Appalachia without the privilege of grooming. (He does use beard oil...