WINTER 1999
Volume 42, Number 2

IN THIS ISSUE

Stretching the Dollars to Update Technology

'Dear Mom...'

What We Need

Sweating out the Tryouts

Changing Binge Drinking

Health Iowa

Students First Rx

Plenty of Choices

Squandered Opportunities

Parent Times Briefs

Calendar

  The third week of August. It's hotter than...well, that's one reason it's called Hell Week.

Eighty new players, mostly freshmen, are spending their last week of summer vacation on a football practice field to sweat under an unrelenting sun and squirm under the firm directions of drill instructors.

They come to play as Hawkeyes­horn players and drum players­trying out for one of 260 spots with the Hawkeye Marching Band.

During a 10-minute water break, freshman baritone player Eddie Robinson shares a compliment for the veteran students who are teaching new students.

"They're doing a good job of teaching us the drill and the style, plus they're keeping it fun," Robinson says.

His three years of marching at Valley High School in West Des Moines prepared him well for Hell Week, he says, "but there's still a lot to be learned as you adapt to a new technique. You have to keep it all coordinated­the marching and the playing.

"And, in the back of your mind, you're thinking about Saturday's cuts."

As if the physical heat and sweat of Hell Week weren't enough, students know that their performance on the practice field is being observed for the final selections. (Robinson was among the majority of the freshmen who made the cut; relatively few had to be weeded out.)

Freshmen weren't the only newcomers on the field during this year's Hell Week. Director Kevin Kastens is new to Iowa this season, but not new to the Big Ten's get-serious style of marching. Before his four years as head of the University of Missouri Marching Band, he did stints with the bands at Illinois and Indiana, worked with the Northwestern University band staff, and led Chicago-area high school bands.

"I am overwhelmed by how seriously people take their marching band at Iowa," Kastens says. Even during his own grueling Hell Week schedule, he managed to squeeze in a number of newspaper and television interviews. At home he found celebrity when his family attended a block party and neighbors learned that he was the man holding the band's baton.

"Support for the marching band is incredible from fans, alumni, students, the football coaching staff, and the University administration," Kastens says. "It's really a privilege to be in this position."

During Hell Week, Kastens shares much of the on-the-ground leadership with a six-member graduate student staff and 25 undergraduate student instructors. He allows that during his first year he's taking in the whole picture, observing the well-tuned training and performance practices, adding his own polishing touches here and there, and keeping alive the band's traditions, which date back more than 100 years.

"Hey, you know how significant a marching band tradition is when your school's fight song was written exclusively for you by none other than Meredith Willson, the Music Man himself," Kastens says.

Traditions are evident a few days later during Hell Week. The upperclassmen have joined the freshmen on the practice field, and it's time for them to get the frosh to relax and feel like a part of the group.

Old nicknames get shared and new ones are cast when the 66 trumpet players form a big circle­two and three players deep­at the shady end of the practice field. Each trumpeter stands and recites name, hometown, major, year in school, nickname, and how that name came to be. Understandably, there's a lot of laughter.

Freshman Kari Hendren, an open major from Corydon, says it wasn't long before she inherited the nickname, "Tongue." "It's a trumpet thing," she says with a blush.

The real reward for Hendren came after the band's first home-game performance of the season, Sept. 5.

"My parents were at the game and later the next week I got the neatest card from my mom," Hendren says. "She wrote that she always had gotten goose bumps when I played in the high school band. At Kinnick Stadium that day, when the Hawkeye Marching Band took the field, her goose bumps were ten times bigger than ever."

For Kastens and the band, raising Hawkeye spirit, entertaining fans, being goodwill ambassadors and upholding school traditions are just part of the job.

"Our students are taking marching band as a for-credit course," Kastens says. "I'm wanting them to excel as musicians, especially since three-fourths of them are non-music majors. Also, many are going to be music educators themselves who will pass along their tremendous Hawkeye Marching Band experiences for coming generations of musicians."

And as for Hell Week next year, regardless of the temperatures, Robinson and Hendren say they'll both be back on the practice field, perhaps even as instructors, helping the new batch of hopefuls through their paces.

Says Robinson: "There's something special about an organization like the Hawkeye Marching Band that makes you want to give it your all and return to it some of the good it has given you."

"Let's Go Hawks!" he adds.

-By Greg Johnson

Director Kevin Kastens uses tradition and drill to prepare new freshmen for Hawkeye Marching Band tryouts.