Odds On

It's been all of 30 years since the first notice appeared calling on instrumentalists to try out for "a band to play at football games." It was the fall of 1919--one year after the first war to end all wars. They played--45 men--most of them former army bandsmen. They sat right where the band will sit today, section 35. There's no record of how well they played, but perhaps that's all the better.

And now it's one of the best bands there are--there's no doubt about that. There are bigger bands, usually preceded by prancing co-eds, suitably unattired. But there is no band that can play music quite as well.

Perhaps it's special arrangements of college medleys, or balance in the brasses, or sleek-toned reeds, or something else technical. Or perhaps it's something more. It doesn't matter to the thousands who can count on at least one bright spot in a Soldiers Field afternoon; to the fan-letter writers or to bandsmen alumni who covet their former membership, and come back to prove that they do.

The band has had its troubles--there's no question about that either. Ask the Dean's office. There was the Virginia trip that they took, from which they almost didn't return, and there was the Stanford trip, on which they didn't go at all. Their chronic financial ills are well known. Ask the HAA, or better, ask the band's manager. Each year there's the possibility that the band may not go on at all.

It always does, however. And one thing is certain; no matter what the game's score, the band always wins. You can get good odds on that, and the odds have been getting better for 30 years.