You'll flip when you see what Cecil is doing now
Photo courtesy of NORTH IDAHO COLLEGE Travis “Flip Gordon” Lopes dunks a basketball as Cecil Cardinal during a game at North Idaho College. Lopes, now a professional wrestler and in the U.S. military, was Cecil Cardinal for four years until 2014.
Courtesy photo Travis “Flip” Gordon, left, is pictured with two people he has worked with in the world of professional wrestling.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then desire, according to Travis Lopes, is the mother of reinvention.
Lopes, a former North Idaho College student, has done his share of revamping.
The former high school wrestler is best known around Coeur d'Alene for wearing a bird costume. For four years until 2014, Lopes was NIC's mascot, Cecil the Cardinal.
“He set the bar for all Cecils very, very high,” said NIC spokesperson Tom Greene.
Stacy Hudson, the college's director of communications and marketing, knows a little about image. Lopes, she said, who joined the Cardinals' cheer squad after being a high school wrestler in Kalispell, Mont., switched to being the college mascot when he realized cheerleading didn't suit him.
Through his own transformation, she said, Lopes elevated the popularity of the run-of-the-mill red bird that danced at halftime to a crowd pleasing, basketball dunking, one-man hootenanny.
“(Lopes) was naturally athletic and was able to tumble and slam dunk in the suit, bringing Cecil a swagger he had never had before,” Hudson said. “As the ambassador for North Idaho College, Cecil Cardinal is a lot cooler than when Travis first met him.”
That was then.
Now 25, Lopes lives across the country, as far from Idaho and western Montana as you can get without an international border crossing.
But don't let it fool you.
Lopes, through another in a series of life changes, has crossed a border from red bird to big time.
“I'm the general of the Flip Army,” Lopes said from his home in Boston, where he trains as a professional wrestler with his eyes on a contract with the WWE — the publicly traded entertainment corporation where grapplers with names like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Stone Cold Steve Austin have pounded, punched, kicked and arm barred their way into prosperity.
Since his time in Coeur d'Alene, Lopes has fought in mixed martial arts, became a combat engineer in an Army National Guard unit, and earned a contract with Ring of Honor Wrestling, one of three top venues in the sport that sponsor events across the globe.
His ring name is Flip Gordon.
“I've always been kind of a tumbling, flippy guy,” he said.
Both accomplishments fit into a regime of goal setting and achievement that has become part of his fabric.
His role in the real Army taps into his patriotism and desire to make a bang.
“We use ... explosives to breach buildings, remove obstacles,” he said. “It's pretty sweet.”
He speaks of wrestling as a means to an end. Becoming a professional grappler fulfills his need to entertain, wrestle and make a living.
“My dream has always been to be a professional wrestler, since I was a kid,” he said. “I've always been an entertainer.”
His mother, Janis Patera, concurs. From the very beginning, her oldest boy has been wrangling. Anyone. Anytime. Anywhere.
“Nobody had a choice, not even me,” Patera told the Daily Inter Lake, Lopes' hometown newspaper. “If he was going to wrestle you, you were going to have to wrestle him or figure out how to get out of it.”
Lopes — Flip Gordon — recalls with fondness his time in Coeur d'Alene as Cecil. He remembers getting the new Cecil suit, a hot, topheavy affair with a fan inside to keep the sweating to a minimum, and eye holes that impaired visibility.
Regardless, he strapped it on for the first time during an NIC basketball game against archrival College of Southern Idaho, and schooled mascots in dunking a ball while leaping through the air from a trampoline in a bird suit.
He loved doing trick shots and acrobatics, getting free tickets and having the best seat in the house — right on the floor.
“I loved the players, the students, the staff and coaches,” he said. “They made me want to come back year after year.”
He still refers to Coeur d'Alene as his second home.
His new home on the East Coast, where he continues his active lifestyle, is part apartment, part ring life and part traveling. He's had matches in Mexico, Canada and England and a dozen states, and doesn't plan to stop.
Reaching the status of professional wrestler, a person who grapples for a living, wasn't easy although it seems to have happened fast, he said.
“Some people aren't willing to sacrifice,” he said. “I've sacrificed so much, but I never thought of quitting because it's my passion.
“I want to keep getting better. I want to be one of the best professional wrestlers in the world.”
Watch Travis “Flip” Gordon flip around the ring: bit.ly/WatchFlipGordonCDAPress