Medical Alumni Make Memories in UW Marching Band

Walk out the doors of the Health Sciences Learning Center (HSLC) on a sunny autumn afternoon, and you'll hear the bright brass and crisp beat of "On Wisconsin" from the nearby band practice field along Lake Mendota.

 

Leave the Health Sciences Learning Center a little later on a Tuesday as the sun sets and you'll pass the band members themselves, flooding into the HSLC atrium as medical students are leaving, heading to one of the lecture halls for a performance critique by band director Mike Leckrone.

 

The Badger Marching Band and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health have had a surprising amount of overlap over the years.

 

Several current medical students and about 120 medical alumni also were members of one of the UW bands during their undergraduate years, including Richard Edwards, MD '60, and Quinton Callies, MD '60, whose class held its 50th reunion last spring.

 

Some have "rock star" memories, while others can tell their kids about leading an impromptu pep rally on State Street when the Badger Basketball team made the National Collegiate Athletic Association Final Four.

 

Recently, the ties between the band and the medical school have grown closer. Since the fall of 2008, the band has used an auditorium in the Health Sciences Learning Center to watch film of its pre-game and halftime performance at the previous Saturday's football game.

 

By day, the Health Sciences Learning Center classroom screens are filled with images of excitable membranes, proteolytic enzymes and messenger RNA translations. But one fall evening a week, professor Leckrone holds sway, running the video backward and forward, making the band flood the field at Camp Randall and then reverse back into the tunnel - over and over, aiming for perfection on the field.

 

Nervous laughter fills the auditorium as the band members spot an unfortunate trombone player who has left too big a gap in the marching formation, something the eagle-eyed Leckrone is sure to highlight with his laser pointer and his "dummy list."

 

But band and medical alumni will tell you that there is a connection here.

 

John Vasudevan, MD '07, and a drummer in the band from 1999 to 2002, says the intensity of band practice and Leckrone himself, helped prepare him for the rigors of medical school.

 

"His enthusiasm is infectious, and he truly loves his job, but you DO NOT want to see him angry," Vasudevan says. "Professor Leckrone taught me that success requires self-discipline. Even though my biochemistry major gave me the knowledge to get into medical school, my experiences in the marching band gave me more skills to succeed in medical school than any other college course."

 

Cementing the Connection to UW-Madison

 

The person who brought the band to the Health Sciences Learning Center is Christopher Stillwell, MS, director of academic and career advising at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and equally importantly, a Badger Band alum. Stillwell heard that the band was looking for a new film room, and decided that the HSLC might be perfect.

 

"We love it," Leckrone says. "It's a very comfortable room, and much closer to our practice field, so the kids can get over here and then get home much more quickly."

 

In exchange for the room, the band sends performers to School of Medicine and Public Health events, including alumni gatherings at homecoming and graduation.

 

Stillwell's years playing trumpet in the band, from 1996 to 2001, overlapped with those of Heisman Trophy running back Ron Dayne, which meant he got to go to two Rose Bowls. He also played at a hockey championship and a Final Four appearance by the basketball Badgers.

 

"These experiences and my time in the band really cemented my connection to UW," says Stillwell, who still gets the chills when he hears the strains of the "On Wisconsin" finale.

 

Medical Alumni Have Fond Memories of Marching Band

 

There are plenty of School of Medicine and Public Health alumni who would agree that the years they played in the band were the among the best ever.

 

Greg Horwitz, MD '03, played snare drum from 1995 to 1999, as well as the drum set for band concerts in the Field House and Kohl Center. The drum set was set up by professionals so that the sound went through huge speakers.

 

"Every time I hit the bass drum, the whole auditorium shook," says Horowitz, now a urologist in Kansas City. "Playing in front of thousands of people with lights, fireworks and a massive-sounding drum set is as close to being a rock star as I'll get ... now back to kidney stones!"

 

Stephanie Place, MD '10, recalls the rigors of registration week tryouts.

 

"We would begin the first practice with the freshmen on one side of the 50-yard-line and the returning band facing them on the opposite side of the field," says Place, who played trombone from 2003 to 2007. "Mike would shout 'Atten-hut!' and we would snap to attention, trying to look as fierce as possible."

 

While the upperclassman spent the week working the hapless freshmen half to death, the week ended with the "dreaded perimeters," a continuous drill around the outside of the playing field that happens at the end of an exhausting week and seems never to stop.

 

"Each upperclassman would pick a freshman to march behind," Place recalls, "shouting encouragement and getting them through that one last workout and officially into the band."

 

Jared Olsen, MD '07, probably wins the award for the most medical-oriented band memory. In January 2003, the band followed the Badger football team to the Alamo Bowl in sunny San Antonio, Texas.

 

"Spirits were high, and all was good, except for one or two members who arrived with the 'flu,'" recalls Olsen, who played trumpet. "Day by day, the ranks of the band thinned for our daily marching rehearsals. The 'flu' was instead an extremely contagious Norwalk-like virus that spread through the band like wildfire."

 

Olsen recalls a member of the spirit squad fainting just a few feet from him, dehydrated from the virus.  

 

"Despite how sick the band was, every member marched into the stadium and performed a great show," he says. "The football team then came back with an amazing come-from-behind victory."

 

The plane ride home was memorable, says Olsen, adding, "Let's just say that the chartered plane home ran out of biohazardous trash bags."

 

Olsen himself stayed healthy through strict hand and mouth hygiene, a lesson he can share with his patients at the Mayo Clinic, where he is a resident.

 

By Susan Lampert Smith

This article appears in the fall 2010 issue of Quarterly.

Date Published: 11/08/2010