Marching Jayhawks hope to rebuild flock

If the Kansas University marching band looks smaller at today’s football game than in years past, it’s because it is.

At 150, the Marching Jayhawks’ membership is its lowest in decades. Nearly 275 student musicians played in the band 15 years ago, and participation hovered around 240 for several years.

But this season, bands at most other Big 12 schools outnumber KU by at least 100 members.

“If there was a specific answer that we could all point to, then we would be solving the problem or taking steps to solve the problem,” director Timothy Oliver said. “We don’t know what the specific problem is.”

Though membership has been ebbing steadily, the numbers are low enough this year to kindle alarm in the music and dance department. Band officials are trying to pinpoint the “magic formula” to get more students involved, Oliver said.

Newly appointed director of bands John Lynch has set a goal of increasing enrollment to 300 members within the next three years.

‘Whatever we need to do’

Some factors are difficult for band officials to control: money, for instance.

Up until the end of the 2000 marching season, KU, like other college marching bands across the country, offered modest stipends to its junior and senior members. Oliver, who has been at KU for three years, said he wasn’t sure of the source of the stipend money, but tight budgets have tapped it dry.

The band’s two main sources of revenue are the Kansas University Athletics Corp. and the music and dance department. It also gets money from Student Senate.

Tom Stidham, assistant director of bands, said department officials were looking into ways to offer stipends again, a move he thinks could attract more students.

“At this point in time, we’re willing to try whatever we need to do to get that number up a bit,” he said.

Better ball clubs

KU’s string of not-so-stellar football squads can’t be helping matters either, Stidham said.

“The Kansas State University band was a very small band until they started winning,” he said. “It helps if you have a team that is more successful than ours has been the last few years.”

Frank Tracz, director of bands at Kansas State, said that when he started in 1993, the marching band there had just 123 members. But that’s the year the school’s football team turned around its fortunes. Now the band is about 275 members strong.

“Winning football is the main impetus behind that, no question,” he said. “At K-State, we’re very fortunate. We’ve got a very good football team. That’s a draw in itself. We play USC Saturday. It’s sold out. Our band kids are jacked sky-high.”

‘A little hectic’

Oliver said KU band officials spent a great deal of time recruiting high school hopefuls. But the job isn’t easy these days, Tracz said.

“It’s real difficult to get kids to want to do this. Band is a lot of work,” he said. “There’s not a lot of scholarship money. It takes some time (to participate). It takes an awful lot of energy. You’re standing in the rain, the mud, the snow.”

And most college marching band members who spend hours rehearsing and performing on game day aren’t even music majors. About 75 percent of a typical band is composed of musicians studying something other than music, Oliver said.

Tim Swindoll, a McPherson senior in biology starting his fourth year with the Marching Jayhawks, said being saxophone section leader presented a huge time crunch.

“I’m either usually studying for a test or doing something for band,” said Swindoll, who also is busy applying to medical schools. “I’ve gotten a lot of compliments from medical administrators and other doctors being impressed with the time commitment I’ve spent in band.”

But Swindoll also has seen plenty of fellow musicians drop from the ranks because marching ate up too many hours.

“It gets a little hectic spending every weekend at a football game,” he said.

Although KU band officials would like to have more people on the field  and they are doing what they can to remedy the shortage  Oliver said it hadn’t compromised the band’s quality.

“I am very comfortable in saying I feel that we stack up against our peers very well,” Oliver said. “The kids in this band work extremely hard. Their effort is impeccable.”