Traditions of the UC Bearcat marching band

by Deborah Rieselman

In 1954, University of Cincinnati Bearcat marching-band morale was low, and respect from the student body even lower. To attract attention and spark enthusiasm, new band director Bob Hornyak decided the band should make a spectacular grand entrance at the next football game.

Right before kickoff, brass and woodwind sections lined up behind the top row of seats at Nippert Stadium's closed end. After playing a fanfare, the students charged down the steps with instruments in hand to meet the percussion section waiting below.

The crowd went wild. The band members beamed. Later, letters of praise started coming in from appreciative fans.

"Fans"? That was a new concept for the band. The move was certainly worth trying a few more times.

Fifty years later, the Marching Bearcat Band's method of storming the field at football games celebrates its golden anniversary. "We wanted to make a splash, a statement that we were different," recalls Hornyak, now music professor emeritus. "And we did."

When current band director Terren Frenz arrived in '94, he cringed when he heard about the practice. "It scared me. I thought, 'OK, call my lawyer; this is a nightmare waiting to happen.'"

But he quickly realized that eliminating the maneuver was not a decision in his realm of authority. "If I tried to destroy that, I'd be hung in effigy," he says with a laugh. "It's considered a risk of honor."

Although Frenz did make the run optional, he has no horror stories to relate. "The worst problem we have had is keeping the fans out of the way," he says. "We mow them down."

During Hornyak's 16-year career as band director, he never let the band rehearse the stunt before the season began. If students spent too much time worrying about the routine, he says, they might have psyched themselves into falling. "And we made the rule that if anyone fell, you had to roll them out of the way so they wouldn't interfere with the next person," he says with such a slight grin that he might be serious.

Only one student tripped during his tenure. Nevertheless, psyching students into trembling over the tactic was a chore upperclassman relished. "We always wanted to scare the freshmen to death," says alto-sax and clarinet player Linda Gall, Ed '65, MEd '70, also a Band Alumni Association board member. "We made up horrible stories."

"Telling wild tales about people who almost broke their neck was the way upperclassmen hazed the freshmen," Hornyak says. "It was a rite of passage."

Just once did he consider discontinuing the spectacle -- on a snowy Thanksgiving day in the late '50s when he feared charging down 60 icy steps would be dangerous. As he reached the stadium, however, he found senior band members there first, salting the stairs.

"By that time, it had already become a tradition as far as they were concerned," he says. "It was a source of pride. Once you did it, you were part of the group."

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