Nebraska high school bands and the Cornhusker Marching Band cover the field during a halftime performance at Band Day in 1959. A story not well known outside of University of Nebraska-Lincoln band circles is that during the depths of the Great Depression, the band came up with an idea that increased attendance at football games and brought in much-needed revenue to the UNL Athletic Department. The Great Depression of the 1930s had an impact on everything and everyone.
Attendance at UNL home football games had tanked, and the department was scratching for revenue to keep the department solvent. Newly arrived on campus was Don Lentz, a superb musician who had played in the famous John Philip Sousa touring band. Lentz taught in the UNL College of Music and was director of University Bands, which included the Cornhusker Marching Band.
Historically, the Athletic Department had given financial support to the band. But when Lentz arrived, that support had dwindled, rendering the band unable to purchase new instruments, buy new music or conduct normal operations. Lentz came to Nebraska from Ohio, where he had experience with an event called Band Day.
At one game per year, high school bands were invited to attend a football game and perform a mass concert pre-game and during halftime. Despite the Depression, parents of the young musicians would find a way to buy tickets to attend a game where their sons and daughters performed. Lentz suggested to the Athletic Department that having a Band Day at Nebraska would perk up attendance at the games and result in more badly needed revenue.
The Athletic Department decided to try this idea, and the first Band Day was on a snowy, blustery Saturday in October 1938. The idea proved so popular that directors of high school marching bands across the state clamored to attend Band Day. Marching in the Superior High School Band, I attended two Band Days in the 1950s.
By that time, so many bands were applying to attend that a given band could only come every other year. At that time, the ends of Memorial Stadium were not filled in. There were bleachers on both the south and north ends, which is where the visiting bands sat during the game on Band Day.
Upon my arrival as a freshman at UNL in the fall of 1958, I was fortunate to be selected as a member of the Cornhusker Marching Band. I auditioned before Lentz, who had me play the 13 snare drum rudiments in his office. He then had me sing a song a cappella to make sure I was not tone deaf.
A few days later a list was posted, and I was one of the 10 names listed for the percussion section of the marching band. I went to Lentz and told him that although I could play the snare drum, I had played the bass drum in my high school’s marching band, and I thought I would do better playing bass drum than snare drum. With a drum rank of only 10 percussionists at that time, I worried that he would select someone else.
There was only one bass drum in the Cornhusker Marching Band at that time. Much to my surprise, when we showed up for the first marching band practice, Lentz told me to strap on the bass drum. My first Band Day was in the fall of 1958.
It was a logistical nightmare. Not only did we perform that day, but we had to ride herd on a bunch of high school band members. Invitations were sent out in the summer, and high school bands signed up.
By the fall of 1958, Band Day had evolved into an early-morning rehearsal for the Band Day show followed by a parade down O Street. When the parade was completed, the bands all ended up back at Memorial Stadium and had to be fed lunch in a short time. A Cornhusker Band member was assigned to host each high school band.
We hung out in the large parking lot north of Memorial Stadium, looking at the fleet of arriving school buses and searching for our bands’ buses. We then took the band members to the stadium and showed them where they would be seated during the game. Once that was done, we led our band out onto the field to its assigned spot, grabbed our own instruments and assembled in the center of the field.
Lentz directed the whole rehearsal from a tall platform on wheels centered on the 50-yard line. I was right below him looking up and ready to do as he asked. A problem with massed bands is keeping all of them playing in time.
Lentz told me, “Hit the drum as hard as you can and hope the people near the end zones can hear you.” This worked fairly well, but I recall one band day when the bands on the north end of the field ended a song, and from the south end we heard an interesting echo – those bands were a bit behind the others! After rehearsal, the Cornhusker Marching Band marched out onto 10th Street to lead the parade downtown. We marched from 10th Street to 17th Street and then back to Memorial Stadium.
We had a few moments to catch our breath, and then we formed serving lines to hand out hotdogs, potato chips and a cup of cola to the high schoolers. When the last had been served, we went with the bands to their seats in Memorial Stadium, practiced our pre-game show on the field south of the south bleachers and then did the pre-game show on the field. During the game, we played school songs (no electronic message screens in the stadium back then for timeouts or breaks between the quarters).
Halftime arrived, and it was SHOW TIME. The high school bands moved into position on the field, and we went through a series of marches as a massed band. The Cornhusker Marching Band then played during breaks in the second-half action.
We left the high school bands to find their way to their buses and marched down 10th Street to the band building. It was a long, exhausting day, and my arms were sore from all the drum beating. I had worn blisters on my thumb and finger.
In later years, I taped my hands to avoid this. My last year in band was the spring of 1962, when I got my undergraduate degree. The fall of 1962 was my first year of Law College, and I did not continue in band.
That fall saw the arrival of a new coach who would make the Nebraska football team a national contender. More and more people came to the games, and soon the south end of the stadium was closed in, adding more seats. Eventually, the north end of the stadium was closed in to create a full oval.
During these years, the high school band members sat in the lower seats at both ends during Band Day. As demand for football tickets continued to climb, it occurred to someone in the Athletic Department that on Band Day, the high school bands were taking up a lot of seats that could be sold to bring in more money. The fall of 1972 saw the last UNL Band Day.
Band Day continued, sort of. For several years, the Nebraska Band sponsored a marching band contest with a parade down O Street and a marching band competition. Eventually, this was taken over by the Nebraska School Activities Association and the Cornhusker Band involvement ended.
Thus, Band Day, once the savior of the Athletic Department, was consigned to history. A combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and lackluster performance of the Husker football team finds the UNL Athletic Department trying all sorts of gimmicks to preserve the stadium’s sellout string. Should we consider bringing back Band Day? It would guarantee a sellout for one of the early nonconference games against uninspiring opponents.
It would also resurrect a great tradition that thrilled crowds for almost 40 years. Author’s note: Rose Johnson, UNL Band alum and the band’s administrative technician at UNL’s Glenn Korff School of Music, provided helpful information for this article, as did UNL Band alum Gary Steffens, who wrote a book about the history of the UNL Band. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
