The Wave Turns 25 Years Old
The main page at Yahoo! has been linking to this story about the beginning of the Wave.
Krazy George and the UW athletic department have been arguing about who invented it for 25 years. Who cares?
I was, however, at the UW homecoming game where we first did the Wave.
It was my freshman year and I was in the marching band. Robb Weller, an alumni yell leader and at the time a national entertainment news personality, had come back for homecoming and had the student section in good form. The two regular yell leaders we had were nice guys, but couldn't get the crowd going. Just the reverse. One of them was greeted weekly with the taunt:
He brought back a cheer he'd used in his matriculating days, having the student section stand up row by row, each row starting to cheer as they stood. First he'd do it row by row going up; then row by row going down. The students were into it, and you could hear the roar of voices grow as each row stood.
Now, in the trumpet section we also had a tradition of sorts. Most of us could fit on one row. Every now and then we'd unleash our bitingly sarcastic trumpet cheer (trumpeters aren't into organized forms of cheering or making ourselves seen or heard; we can play louder than most any other section; that's good enough and that's how we like it!). The cheer consisted of each trumpeter standing up in turn and unleashing his own variation of a cheer: "Go Dawgs!" - "Defense!" - "Hip hip!" and so on, some loud, some not, but each having to come up with something original. Freshmen rookies sat at the end and had to really think, which isn't fun to do at a football game, let me tell you.
So, after Robb Weller had the students doing the row by row cheer for awhile, one of the woodwind players - I think the sister of one of the trumpeters, neither of whose name I can remember right now (that memory is locked in a part of my brain behind a door that reads "Do Not Enter") - got our director's attention and yelled at him, "Do it sideways!"
Bill Bissell, our director, was always one for trying something different. He'd had the band strip off their uniforms at the Sun Bown a few years before, while playing "The Stripper." That day we were dressed up in Halloween costumes for our halftime routine. The year before the band formed an outline of Mt. St. Helens and blew itself up.
So Mr. Bissell got Robb Weller's attention and they decided to try it. And here's why I don't think anyone was trying to copy Krazy George. Husky Stadium is in the shape of a horseshoe. The student section is along one side of the horseshoe and extends from one endzone down past the 50-yard line. Robb Weller's intent was to do a sideways standup cheer, but only from one end of the student section to the other. The other feature of his cheer was that once you stood you remained standing.
Something else happened. Weller started the cheer up at the endzone. The students readily embraced the sideways cheer. But then so did the rest of the stadium. A wave of people standing up and cheering swept around the whole place. I think we tried it again. Same thing happened, but this time Mr. Bissell had the idea to have the student section sit down, and when the cheer came around again to stand up again. It worked, and the thing kept going round and round the stadium.
The Wave got picked up at Seahawks games. People in Seattle took to it like a warm cup of good coffee on a cold, grey, drizzly day. Well, any day actually. The students at Husky Stadium started getting creative over the next couple seasons: two or more waves going at once, chasing each other around the stadium; two waves going in opposite directions (the crash as they came together was actually pretty cool); etc.
So, really, I think the Wave is one of those things that got independently invented at two different places at roughly the same time. So who cares who invented it?
But ours was better. :-)
Krazy George and the UW athletic department have been arguing about who invented it for 25 years. Who cares?
I was, however, at the UW homecoming game where we first did the Wave.
It was my freshman year and I was in the marching band. Robb Weller, an alumni yell leader and at the time a national entertainment news personality, had come back for homecoming and had the student section in good form. The two regular yell leaders we had were nice guys, but couldn't get the crowd going. Just the reverse. One of them was greeted weekly with the taunt:
Hey! Ungowa! K--- go take a shower!But Robb Weller had the magic.
He brought back a cheer he'd used in his matriculating days, having the student section stand up row by row, each row starting to cheer as they stood. First he'd do it row by row going up; then row by row going down. The students were into it, and you could hear the roar of voices grow as each row stood.
Now, in the trumpet section we also had a tradition of sorts. Most of us could fit on one row. Every now and then we'd unleash our bitingly sarcastic trumpet cheer (trumpeters aren't into organized forms of cheering or making ourselves seen or heard; we can play louder than most any other section; that's good enough and that's how we like it!). The cheer consisted of each trumpeter standing up in turn and unleashing his own variation of a cheer: "Go Dawgs!" - "Defense!" - "Hip hip!" and so on, some loud, some not, but each having to come up with something original. Freshmen rookies sat at the end and had to really think, which isn't fun to do at a football game, let me tell you.
So, after Robb Weller had the students doing the row by row cheer for awhile, one of the woodwind players - I think the sister of one of the trumpeters, neither of whose name I can remember right now (that memory is locked in a part of my brain behind a door that reads "Do Not Enter") - got our director's attention and yelled at him, "Do it sideways!"
Bill Bissell, our director, was always one for trying something different. He'd had the band strip off their uniforms at the Sun Bown a few years before, while playing "The Stripper." That day we were dressed up in Halloween costumes for our halftime routine. The year before the band formed an outline of Mt. St. Helens and blew itself up.
So Mr. Bissell got Robb Weller's attention and they decided to try it. And here's why I don't think anyone was trying to copy Krazy George. Husky Stadium is in the shape of a horseshoe. The student section is along one side of the horseshoe and extends from one endzone down past the 50-yard line. Robb Weller's intent was to do a sideways standup cheer, but only from one end of the student section to the other. The other feature of his cheer was that once you stood you remained standing.
Something else happened. Weller started the cheer up at the endzone. The students readily embraced the sideways cheer. But then so did the rest of the stadium. A wave of people standing up and cheering swept around the whole place. I think we tried it again. Same thing happened, but this time Mr. Bissell had the idea to have the student section sit down, and when the cheer came around again to stand up again. It worked, and the thing kept going round and round the stadium.
The Wave got picked up at Seahawks games. People in Seattle took to it like a warm cup of good coffee on a cold, grey, drizzly day. Well, any day actually. The students at Husky Stadium started getting creative over the next couple seasons: two or more waves going at once, chasing each other around the stadium; two waves going in opposite directions (the crash as they came together was actually pretty cool); etc.
So, really, I think the Wave is one of those things that got independently invented at two different places at roughly the same time. So who cares who invented it?
But ours was better. :-)
Labels: Huskies
