Wisconsin’s Tuba Players Get to Show Their Colors

At a Minnesota game here years ago, a grade-school basketball player tore a football program apart and bunched the pages into paper balls.

Then, as the university band marched by, the youngster completed one jump shot after another into the tubas.

This was to have colorful consequences. First, foiling the jump shooters, the university bought bright red, form-fitting covers for the tubas.

Then, proud of its appearance and musicianship, the 20-piece tuba section began parading around the edges of the field--single file--playing “On, Wisconsin” and other marching songs in deep, mellifluous tones.

And so it does to this day. At home games, at the start of the fourth quarter, there go the Wisconsin tuba players, snaking around the field. Each musician is a vision in red and white carrying a big red and brass tuba--marching in time, playing in close harmony.

Thanks to a nameless, long-forgotten basketball player, there’s nothing like it anywhere else.