Eastern’s volleyball staff has been explosive on the court docket as they’re presently 19-2 for the season.
Along with this success, the Panthers discovered a method to confuse coloration commentators throughout a reside broadcast on ESPN+.
During the second set of a Panther win towards University of Tennessee-Martin, sophomore center blocker Kate Dean held the pillow of five-month-old Cheeto above her head, swinging it round to the rhythm of the music.
“We gotta get the cat story,” one of many coloration commentators mentioned.
Five-month-old Cheeto is senior outdoors hitter Emily Wilcox’s kitten.
Wilcox defined that she adopted Cheeto from a Decatur animal shelter in June 2023. Cheeto was a barn cat that acquired deserted by his mom.
“I knew that I wanted to get a cat,” Wilcox mentioned. “The apartment that I lived in this summer, there was some lady that was trying to offer me her cat, but it was already old.”
Wilcox determined to search for kittens on Facebook and picked Cheeto out of a number of six kittens.
“I thought he was the cutest,” Wilcox mentioned. “He’s a nice cat. I feel like you hear about cats being mean and hiding and sleeping all the time, but he’s always around. He wakes me up every morning.”
One day, Wilcox’s mother, Michelle, stunned her daughter by sending a cat formed pillow with Cheeto on it.
“I took [the pillow] into the locker room one day, and [the team] thought it was the funniest thing, and I put him on the bench too,” Wilcox mentioned. “The whole team, even people that don’t like cats, I don’t know if they’re lying to me, but everyone loves Cheeto.”
Wilcox mentioned the preliminary feedback from the UTM sport prompted her to proceed bringing the pillow to the volleyball video games.
“I kinda wanted it to be anonymous because it’s a public account and there are weirdos, but it’s like, the ESPN people started talking about it too,” Wilcox mentioned. “I think it’s just a running joke because he’s just a cat, but all of my teammates comment on his posts and my coaches even repost it.”
Wilcox additionally lives with three of her teammates; sophomore setter Catalina Rochaix, junior outdoors hitter Kaitlyn Flynn and senior outdoors hitter Giovana Larregui López.
Wilcox admitted that Cheeto isn’t a giant trouble relating to dwelling with a kitten and three roommates.
“He doesn’t make much noise or much of a mess,” Wilcox mentioned.
Wilcox additionally mentioned that college students on campus will supply to look at Cheeto whereas the volleyball staff travels for his or her away video games.
“I’m not even exaggerating, a lot of people when we go on our travel trips ask to watch him,” Wilcox mentioned. “If I take him to the vet, it’s like 15 dollars a day, and I haven’t had to do that yet. Some of the soccer girls will watch him, and some of the baseball boys will watch him.”
Wilcox began an Instagram account for Cheeto when she first acquired him.
“I started an Instagram for him and just started posting reels and some of them blew up,” Wilcox mentioned.
A reel posted on June 19 of a seven-week-old Cheeto obtained over 46,000 likes which attracted a lot of followers.
Under the username cheeto.cat20, Cheeto now has over 5,000 followers on Instagram.
Zaria Flippin will be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].
