It's 7 a.m. on a fall Saturday, and Chris Quinn and his wife are beginning to stir in their Sunnyvale home. Sure, they're groggy -- Quinn, '82, put in long hours this week as an electrical engineer for Siemens; his wife, writer Clare Carlson Quinn, '79, was busy working on a short story. But fall Saturdays are a special time in their household, and they're always up in time to dress properly.
Quinn throws on a white shirt, a red vest, black slacks, white tennis shoes, a rumpled canvas hat and a tie that is a bad flashback to the 1970s. Carlson Quinn follows suit but, instead of the vest, slips on a red polyester blazer that only a bull could love. She adds a few touches of her own: studded leather bracelet, a 15-foot whip hooked to her belt, glitter makeup, dangly coin earrings, and red ostrich plumes stuck into her hat, which bears a button reading OLD FARTS. Properly attired, they hop into their 1965 Ford Galaxy 500, the one with a winged naked lady as a hood ornament.
By 9 a.m., they have arrived at their destination and are reaching for breakfast: doughnuts and a cold can of beer. The sight might make C. Everett Koop queasy, but to those who gather here on fall Saturdays, it's known as the breakfast of champions.
Yes, Quinn and Carlson Quinn are still members of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band, performing at football games with students who weren't even born when these two arrived on campus more than 20 years ago. It's not a normal activity, of course, but then no one would ever call the Band normal.
Quinn (who plays tuba) and Carlson Quinn (trombone) aren't alone. About 20 alums -- "Old Farts," in Band lingo -- regularly put aside their workaday worries to perform with the students at games; others show up more sporadically. Four diehards have been around long enough to remember the thrill of playing "All Right Now," the unofficial fight song, for the first time when Stanford won the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day 1972. Bona fide Bandsmen to this day, the Old Farts still help form the lineup through which players sprint onto the field, still yell out doggerel devised on the spot and still revel in tasteless stunts.
Why would any self-respecting adult want to go out there with a bunch of students and act like a nut in front of 50,000 spectators? Some say they do it mainly to keep close to their music. "As a grown-up outside of school, there are not many opportunities, if you're not a professional musician, to play challenging music in an ensemble," says tenor saxophonist Dave Dew, '75, MS '78, who owns a computer software company in Tucson, Ariz., and flies out for a couple of games a season. In other words, once you've jammed with a group that bills itself as the world's largest rock 'n' roll band, playing show tunes at the local community center just doesn't cut it.
Another lure is the chance to hang around with clever young people who have a penchant for rule-breaking and know how to play Zoom Schwartz Profigliano, the Band's preferred drinking game. "As I get older, something draws me back to the creativity, energy and humor of the Band. I don't see that as much in the work world," says alto saxophonist Jerry Povse, '76, a computer programmer who researches artificial intelligence for Microsoft. Greg Louden, '90, MS '90, says joining the Band as an undergraduate allowed him "to define who I was going to be," and he continues to play because he refuses to accept "the strictures of adulthood that say you should act in a certain way." Or, as Frank Robertson, '65, puts it, "Where else can I have so much fun doing something that is even marginally legal?"
Then he laughs and adds, "The bottom line is that I haven't grown up."
The first quarter of the game is well under way. Most of the Old Farts are clustered toward the back of the Band section, exchanging sarcastic comments about the Cardinal's performance. "The team's winning; we're almost in a state of shock," deadpans Carlson Quinn. Stanford makes a first down and the Band strikes up. She flips hurriedly through her music -- kept in a folder she has made from the carrying case of a Sierra Nevada six-pack -- and finds the right page just as the song ends. Her problem is that she's so short she usually can't see the drum major to find out what song they're going to do.
A few seats away, trombonist Steve Blasberg, '72, MS '74, MA '75, MS '80, is hamming it up with every number. He adds little kicks and hops, even though practically no one in the stands can see him. When Stanford scores, Blasberg works his own ad-lib harmony into "All Right Now." And although he can't always see the drum major, he knows just when to quiet down and when to crank up the volume again after the team kicks an extra point. After a quarter-century, this is second nature to him.
Later in the game, a flock of screaming 10-year-old girls rushes up to get autographs from the Band members, including the alums. "They're just Band fans -- there's no other explanation," observes Blasberg, beaming. "The Band always wins, no matter what the score."
The student-run band has no age restrictions and, in fact, welcomes alums with open arms. The term "Old Fart," in fact, is defined in an early '80s edition of the official Band Handbook ("shell-shocked and burned-out Band veteran"). The older members offer the students a link to the past, not to mention a credit card on road trips when someone over 25 is needed to rent a car. "We absolutely love 'em -- they provide a sense of wisdom, homeostasis and storytelling throughout the years," says Band manager Jon Stemmle, '00. "And we never have any problems with them, because the ones who stick around this long are the ones everyone likes."
Do the oldsters ever feel like party-crashing outsiders? "Definitely not," says Blasberg, 48, who teaches math at West Valley Community College in Saratoga. "I am an equal part. If I didn't feel I was part of the group, I wouldn't be playing."
Blasberg stuck with the Band through grad school, then quit in 1980 because he suddenly felt too old. He came back in 1994 after filling in at an early September game and discovering it was fun to play again. "I blame it on Mick Jagger," the trombonist says. "I had just seen him at the Oakland Coliseum, and I thought that if Mick Jagger can do it -- and he's older than I am -- then I can, too."
Veteran status has its privileges. The Band showed up at each of his daughters' bat mitzvahs, says Blasberg, and he's one of the few Bandsmen who can show up late at field rehearsals without getting buried in a retaliatory dogpile.
No one has played longer with the Band than Frank Robertson and Jake van Heeckeren. Both were among the Bandsmen who went on strike at the beginning of the 1963 football season to protest the firing of the group's part-time director. (The Band that no longer marches in straight lines was born after the strike was settled.) After Robertson graduated, he served in the Navy in Vietnam. Back in the United States, he rejoined the Band for a 1970 game against the University of Arkansas, when he and his mates scandalized a national TV audience by dropping their trousers during a halftime salute to the Beach Boys. He culminated the season by playing in the Rose Bowl victory over Ohio State. Robertson, who today plays at almost every home game, says his bosses at Hewlett-Packard don't mind his ducking out a few hours early on Fridays to make the field rehearsals.
Van Heeckeren, who came to the Farm as a grad student in 1962, took math and mechanical engineering classes for 14 years without getting an advanced degree. He has played with the Band nearly continuously since his arrival. "If it weren't for the Stanford Band, I wouldn't be playing music anymore," says the trombonist, software consultant and sailmaker. "I feel it's a privilege to be welcomed there." Van Heeckeren's trademark: playing barefoot and painting his feet white. "I much prefer not to wear shoes," he says simply.
Chris Evert and Steffi Graf have retired gracefully. Warren Beatty no longer dates. All of us at some point ask ourselves if we, too, should give up our youthful indulgences, whether it's playing touch football, wearing a miniskirt or staying out all night dancing.
Lately, Chris Quinn has been mulling that question. He's growing weary of the Band, he tells his wife: "It's awfully hard to see myself doing this for another 10 years."
The college sweethearts have been playing together since they first met -- in the Band, of course. But Clare seems to be winding down a bit, too. To keep her throat in shape, she's always had to keep drinking throughout the game. (Beer? "Not really," her husband answers coyly, "although we have been known to sneak one in.") But this year, Clare's age and weakened bladder have caused her to drink less at the games than she used to. The bathrooms, she notes with a grimace, are way up at the top of the stands.
Still, she's not ready to give it all up. She reminds Chris of the great parties during the 1996 Sun Bowl trip, then recalls the epic halftime formation against USC in 1984, when each Band member finished the show by leaving a dollar on the field. "Remember how the USC band director was furious?" she says, laughing. "They marched over the money. Then the teams came out. Remember the photograph of the USC player handing a wad of bills to a referee?"
Chris perks up. Maybe it's not time. After all, he and Clare have a saying framed in their guest bedroom: "We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing."
They just might stay young forever.
Tyler Bridges, '82, a former Bandsman who was named "Most Wedged Freshman," is a reporter for the Miami Herald. Editorial assistant Jen Davis, '99, contributed to this article.
