‘Cougartail Kid’: The magic behind a maple donut and an orange jacket

Beckham Bramwell is an 11-year-old boy from Vineyard, Utah. Up until BYU’s game against Kansas State, Beckham was just another BYU basketball fan with a love for Sean Farnham’s favorite dessert: the Cougartail, BYU’s most popular concession snack.

“They’re really good!” said Beckham.

During a timeout late in the second half of BYU’s win against Kansas State, Beckham got the chance to show his love for Cougartails on the Jumbotron.

The Cougartail Kid has more than one million views on X after a video was picked up by Barstool Sports. Since then, Beckham has become a crowd favorite for his inspirational eating.

“It felt like what fame would be like. This is probably how celebrities feel right?” Beckham said to his father, Chris Bramwell. “It was fun, just high-fiving everyone and at one point they were chanting ‘M-V-P.'”

Beckham’s love for BYU

Beckham has been a BYU fan for his entire life and especially loves this year’s BYU basketball team.

“They’re a super good team and my dad came here so I don’t have a choice,” said Beckham. “Plus I like them!”

Beckham has other interests besides crushing Cougartails. He is a huge basketball fan and his favorite BYU player is Aly Khalifa, the Egyptian Magician. He plays basketball occasionally at school, enjoys coding and plays a lot of video games.

“I’ve been trying to do coding and I’ve coded little games, super small, tiny, little flash games,” said Beckham. “I play a lot of Roblox and Fortnite.” It was at this point during our conversation that someone interrupted us to get a picture with Beckham. A situation he finds himself in frequently these days since he went viral.

Beckham has taken “loooots of selfies… a bunch of people of school are like ‘hey that’s the Cougartail kid,'” said Beckham.

Was it planned?

“Yes! It was planned. Five minutes into the game I told my dad, ‘If I get on the Jumbotron, I’m going to eat my Cougartail.’ Five minutes left in the game I ate my Cougartail,” said Beckham.

Fortunately for his family, Beckham does not eat all his food the same way he smashes Cougartails. “No, I have table manners,” said Beckham while Chris laughed saying, “No you don’t!”

Beckham does admit to burping like every 11-year-old but still believes he does have table manners. However, there was one surprise about his food-eating habits.

“If people only knew that when he looked like he was about to throw up,” Chris hesitated. “Can I say this about your throwing up?”

“Oh yeah I have a bad habit of throwing up pretty easily,” said Beckham. “I’m surprised I didn’t throw up.”

Beckham’s story was close to turning into an unsavory display. Fortunately for everyone involved, he kept his delicious treat from coming back out.

“When he did that on the screen, the crowd had no idea how lucky they were,” said Chris. “If he ever finishes a whole Cougartail, it is going to be a miracle.”

The line between failure and success in life is razor-thin. Luckily for Beckham, he came out on the right side of it after his first two performances. However, if he ends up smashing another Cougartail again on the big screen, he is relying on faith to keep his streak of not throwing up again alive.

“I need to start praying I don’t throw up,” Beckham said.

The Orange Hoodie

As impressive and inspiring as Beckham’s ability to inhale Cougartails is his look, the orange jacket and BYU shirt combo, is another part of the magic behind the Cougartail Kid. The orange jacket is technically red but in person and on the jumbotron it appears orange. The Cougars are 2-0 in games where Beckham has appeared on the Jumbotron in his recognizable orange jacket. Beckham was gifted a royal blue jacket at his appearance on the BYUtv show “BYU Basketball with Mark Pope.” Will Beckham switch away from his orange jacket to the traditional BYU blue?

The answer is up in the air. Beckham and his father believe that there might be some magic in the jacket.

“All the badness will collect on this shirt, all the juju will collect on this shirt, and then when BYU’s losing I’ll chuck it onto the other team and then they’ll start downpouring in bad luck,” said Beckham, quoting his father. “Yeah, that’s how he would say it.”

As for right now, Beckham plans to continue to wear the orange jacket but he might put a different twist on his iconic look in the future.

What’s next?

As far as an encore performance from Beckham, he does not know exactly what he’ll do.

“If it comes to me, I have to think of something in five seconds,” said Beckham. “It’s always going to be me crushing a Cougartail. If it comes to me a second time, I’ll dump soda all over myself.”

However, Chris shot that down immediately.

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As for living with his newfound fame, “I don’t really understand anything about how popular I am. I don’t grasp this,” said Beckham. “I think this is like… somewhat being like the most popular kid in school and being known from other schools.”

The concept of being famous is a phenomenon to the normal human understanding. For an 11-year-old in elementary school, it might be even more difficult to grasp. However, according to Chris, Beckham is a grounded and down-to-earth kid who knows very little about everything about what is going on. Right now, Beckham is not chasing fame, he is just enjoying the ride.