Word: harvard
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...fast rate, cutting records, touring the country, giving campus concerts, but always supporting the football teams. Since the Band's creation, its main function has been to play at football games. Its members are faithful and enthusiastic followers, and the coaches, players, and fans appreciate it. The Harvard Athletic Association, the Varsity Club, and coaches of many sports have expressed on occasion words of praise for the Band's support...
...students booed and threw various objects and foodstuffs, New Haven police arrested the whole Band for parading without a license and breach of peace. Also arrested was an off-duty policeman who enjoyed the music enough to step up and direct the Band in "Yo Ho!--the Good Ship Harvard." Bail was posted and the group was once again on its way to New York City. Of course the material trademark of the Harvard University Band is the huge bass drum the largest playable drum in the world--which is six feet in diameter and two feet in depth...
Because of its sentimental value to the Band and because it signifies Harvard's pride in its Band, the drum is always a target for students from rival colleges. It is kept securely in the Band room, especially when certain teams come to town, but on the field, it's open to attack...
Dartmouth students always try to get at least a piece of the big drum, and when it returned from repairs in the Midwest in 1957 they especially wanted it. As the members of the Harvard Band faced the home stands and played "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," some Dartmouth fraternity pledges attacked the drum guards. The musicians turned around, were insulted to see the big drum being threatened, and ran to defend it. A half-time jam ensued with about 500 students throwing body-blocks and punches, but the musicians finally beat off their attackers with their instruments...
Before the next Dartmouth-Harvard game the usually, happy-go-lucky, play-for-anybody Band plunged itself into controversy by announcing that it would not salute the Dartmouth team with the usual medley because of "the interruption to our medley last year." After word of this cold shoulder, adverse response from both Dartmouth and Harvard alumni was so great that the Band reversed its field and decided to play for the visitors...