The Denver Nuggets are asking a judge to dismiss a disability discrimination lawsuit that was filed by a man who played the team’s mascot, claiming that his hip condition is not a disability and, even if it is, the team was not wrong to hold open tryouts after his surgery.
“Any actions taken with respect to the plaintiff’s employment were taken for legitimate, non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory business reasons,” team lawyers wrote Sept. 25.
Drake Solomon, 32, is the son of Kenn Solomon, who became the first Rocky in 1990 and remained the mascot until his retirement in 2021. Drake, who had worked for the team’s promo squad for 10 years by then, was hired to replace his dad after a closed tryout.
Not long after taking the job, which pays a $70,000 base salary plus appearance fees that average $15,000 to $20,000 annually, Drake Solomon was diagnosed with a hip condition. One surgery in early 2023 didn’t resolve the problem, so Drake Solomon told his bosses in early 2024 that he would need to go under the knife again, this time for a full hip replacement.
“We will hold the tryout again for Rocky,” Craig Dzaman, the Nuggets’ director of game presentation, reportedly told Solomon then. “Because … we just can’t risk having a mascot coming off a major hip surgery and not knowing how it’s going to perform.”
Solomon says he performed well at the August 2024 tryout and even showed other applicants how to safely dunk a basketball while wearing the Rocky outfit. But the team chose someone else whose shooting was more accurate that day, according to Solomon’s lawsuit.
That lawsuit accuses Kroenke Sports and Entertainment of firing him because of a disability — his hip condition — in violation of state antidiscrimination laws. Two Nuggets employees who judged the tryout, Dzaman and Steve Johnston, are also being sued by Solomon.
Responding to that lawsuit in court last month, the Nuggets had a different story to tell.
The team denies that Solomon “performed his Rocky duties with passion, energy and joy” before the hip injury, deny that he “successfully performed summer 2024 appearances in costume,” and deny that he did well physically during last year’s open tryouts.
“The plaintiff does not have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities and, as a result, does not have a disability,” team lawyers wrote.
“Should it be found that the (Nuggets) had an obligation to accommodate the plaintiff’s alleged disability beyond the steps already taken, such additional accommodation would have imposed an undue hardship on the (Nuggets),” they told District Judge Chris Baumann.
The team is represented by attorneys Darin Mackender and Stephanie McConkie with the employment law firm Fisher & Phillips in Denver. Solomon’s lawyers are Virginia Hill Butler and Matthew Cron at Rathod Mohamedbhai, a civil rights law firm in Denver.
“The Denver Nuggets had no complaints about Drake Solomon’s in-costume performance as Rocky prior to his injury,” Cron said. “To the extent they are suggesting otherwise, it is nothing more than a belated excuse to justify their unlawful and discriminatory conduct.
“The truth of the matter is that Drake’s termination had nothing to do with his in-costume performance,” according to his attorney, “and everything to do with the fact that he became injured, needed accommodation, and the Nuggets did not trust him to remain healthy.”
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