Buddy Pletz

I had the opportunity to interview Buddy Pletz, the son of L.R. Pletz who bought the original Leeroy. Buddy has given me vital information on the roots of where the idea of having a live mascot for Trinity originated. 

Buddy Pletz, the only surviving son of LeeRoy Pletz, had a full collection of Leeroy artifacts around his office in Terrel Hills, San Antonio. His first exclamation was that Leeroy was “A mighty 2,000 pounds,” as he pointed to a picture of Leeroy on the wall that was donated to the family. Trinity held the largest Bengal tiger in captivity at the time. According to Buddy, his father was a part of a Touchdown Club that knew Trinity needed something to raise its enrolment and popularity. According to his son, Leeroy PLetz was “motivated, a thinker, and idea man” that immediately put his dream of a live tiger into action by calling around the state and country to figure out who had a tiger for sale. Finally, a California Zoo that used their animals for movie productions, reached out to Pletz because Leeroy was too large to play any parts in movies. “Leeroy was too much of a liability, and if they sedated him too much the tiger wouldn’t have been able to perform and would just sit there,” said Buddy. This was Leeroy Pletz’s perfect chance to buy a tiger, and the agreeable price for the tiger was $2,000. 

Buddy was thrilled to know that his father’s works had sparked attention of students today. His father was a well-known man, which is why the adoption of Leeroy was possible at all. Pletz was friends with Tom Slick, the founder of Slick Airways, who was willing to fly Pletz to California in order to pick up Leeroy. Without this, Buddy said that driving Leeroy through the California desert to Texas would have possibly killed the tiger. When arrived in San Antonio, the zoo was happy to accommodate Leeroy. Buddy later stated that, the use of a live tiger as a mascot was a lot of work. In an article from People Magazine, Leeroy was treated with a 10lbs peace of meet. With that kind of appetite, it was important to “keep Leeroy happy.” 

“It was an exciting time for Trinity”, said Buddy. Unfortunately, Buddy did not attend Trinity University to get a full experience of being at a school with this sort of change, but he did have the opportunity to roll Leeroy around the track a few times in 1953-54 in the hand-made cage and trailer made for Leeroy. The cage was actually made from the Southern Prison System’s company and Buddy believes that the trailer may still be around Trinity somewhere. When Leeroy would get ready for a Trinity football game, whoever was handling him would go to the zoo and let the zoo workers guide him into the cage. Next, the handlers going to Trinity would have to be very careful because as Buddy stated, “Even if your foot was on the brake and Leeroy was running from side to side in the cage, the entire truck would skid a few feet.”

I then asked Mr. Pletz how and why did the reign of Leeroy come to an end? According to Buddy, the San Antonio Zoo did not implement any mating programs through Leeroy because they didn’t have another Bengal tiger. Instead, they had African tigers who were much smaller. Also, since Leeroy was not born in a zoo, his first possible reaction to having kids would probably have been to kill them since he knew that living in confinement wasn’t how he grew up. When asked about any Animal Right’s Acts that could have stopped the tradition of a live tiger, Buddy said that “People didn’t know enough about any of those regulations at the time and they sure weren’t being implemented through our zoo”. 

Today, Buddy Pletz runs Pletz Construction, his father's old company in San Antonio. He is a very sweet man who is passionate about his family's history and was excited to talk about the history of Leeroy.