Spring 2006

"There's a woman in the band"

by Alice Frost

They are in the dark tunnel with the ghosts of Notre Dame football legends Knute Rockne and Ara Parseghian. Excitement erases their consciousness until the world disappears. Then the signal comes and they run into the sunlight and fan across the stadium's green field, making their way through the towering, obliterating roar of 80,000 screaming fans.

"It's frightening, overwhelming," Chelsea Chalk '07 (clarinet) says. "You can't describe it."Nicole Thaner's '06 (falto) pale eyes are turning pink. "It's really emotional. Everything else goes away. All you can hear is this crowd and you know they're screaming for you."

Veterans of Notre Dame's marching band protectively inform novices that the shock of coming through the tunnel for the first time will render them musically useless. They advise: "Don't even try to play your instruments; let us take care of the music. Just keep marching and try to stay in formation."

But women weren't always welcome in the country's oldest university band. Formed in 1845, the original all-male band was by 1970, according to then-director Father Robert F. O'Brien, instrumentally incomplete. Anxious to correct the grievous musical imbalance created by his band's inclination to glory in Olympian trumpet blasts, booming tubas, and thundering drums, O'Brien sought the sweet high notes of clarinets, piccolos, and flutes–usually played by the ladies. Perhaps the solution struck him like lightning, or formed like a slow flood, but whatever the case, two years before the University of Notre Dame opened its doors to women, Father O'Brien extended an invitation to the students of Saint Mary's College to join the Band of the Fighting Irish. Jean Ann Kaufman '75 (piccolo) accepted the overture.

"The first couple of weeks everyone wanted to date you," laughs Kaufman. She was among the first of seven or eight intrepid Saint Mary's women to play alongside of about 77 men. "A few of the guys were anti-girl," she admits, but "mostly they were protective, like big brothers."

Kaufman remembers one game where the band was sitting along the 30-yard line, resting. They started to remove their hats when Kaufman suddenly heard voices cry out behind her, "There's a woman in the band." That was then. Now women comprise almost half of the 380-member band, one of the largest in the country, and 45 of them are Saint Mary's students.

Despite the large chunk of time-a minimum of 90 minutes a day plus transportation time-that fall semester rehearsals take out of their schedules, the students overflow with enthusiasm when asked what it's like to be in the band. "I wouldn't give it up for anything," declares Stephanie Hile '06 (clarinet).

"It's just really phenomenal," says Chalk, her round face and chocolate eyes beaming. Chelsea's parents are so proud they are "just beside themselves," she says.

Thaner vibrates with excitement as she describes fans taking her photograph, making her part of their family album and memories forever.

Even decades later alumnae pour forth superlatives. Adrienne Berg Cohoat '77 (piccolo), who owns a bed and breakfast in Middlebury, Ind., says the band was "very important" to her and something she'll be proud of for the rest of her life.

In fact, Larry Dwyer, the band's assistant director, expects 800 to 1,000 alumni to attend next year's band reunion at the Stanford game. Alumni from the 1940s will likely be among those playing on the field again, he says. They'll be the ones with tears streaming down their faces.

What's the enduring thrill of marching band participation? Part of the secret, says Dwyer, is that the "band staff put a lot of responsibility on the students. It's really their band." Upperclass members are responsible for teaching and rehearsing the music, drills, and formations. Students conduct the band during games, create and perform the dance choreography, and offer private coaching to those who need it.

Chalk adds that the band is incredibly inclusive and welcoming. There is no hint of "us" versus "them," which encourages Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students to become "one enormous social group." They become lifelong friends and get to know each others families, too. "They adopt you," Thaner says. Hile adds, "Wherever you find a band member, you're home."

In 1976 the National Council of Music declared the band a "landmark of American Music." But perhaps the more important year was 1970, when Father O'Brien achieved what he said was his greatest accomplishment: bringing Saint Mary's women into the Notre Dame band.

Alice Frost is a freelance writer.