Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007 - (Page 22)

Off the ﬁeld the marching band may seem a little off-beat, but they always play on rhythm. turned out for the spectacle. Like an early version of American Idol, Thaler and the other band judges selected a squad of seven women from hundreds of eager hopefuls. In 1970, the board of trustees voted to begin admitting women in the fall of 1971. But it was a couple of more years before the marching band accepted female musicians. “At the time, it seemed just as alien to us as having women join the varsity football team,” says Andrew Shmerler ’74, a baritone horn player. Some people wondered if women were capable of marching in the military style, and other band members believed that women would change the “tenor of the organization,” which resembled a fraternity, Haines recalls. On Nov. 8, 1971, Lehigh’s student governing body, known as the Forum, ordered the marching band to allow females to audition, according to the Brown and White. However, no women played in the 1972 marching band. The next year, seven women were admitted in the Lehigh Band, an overarching organization that included the Marching 97, the Concert Band, and the Varsity Band. Female musicians played concerts and in the stands during games, but they did not march. Shmerler, the band manager in 1973-74, says women “accepted that marching with the 97 was not part of the deal.” That fall, the Forum and the Brown and White pressured the band and Shmerler, in particular, to allow the women to march. “The band and the University are guilty of infringing one of the republic’s fundamental principles, equality,” said an editorial in the Brown and White. The band clung to its nowomen-allowed stance because of principle, not prejudice, Shmerler says. “We were more concerned about determining our own destiny than preventing women from joining,” Shmerler says. “I, myself, had no particular objection to girls playing.” In an interview with the Brown and White, Shmerler cited the band’s tendency to crudeness and the loss of tradition as reasons to not allow women to march. “Girls don’t really want to march in the band,” he said in an article published Sept. 14, 1973. “This issue is being used as a cause for agitated hotheads like the Brown and White and the Forum who need something to sink their teeth into.” His response earned Shmerler the “Male Chauvinist Pig Award” of 1973, presented in a Brown and White political cartoon published on Sept. 25, 1973. While watching the band perform, Shmerler thought of an impressive new show. He and Joe Janiszewski ’75, the freshman manager, eagerly designed a halftime show for the following home game on Sept. 30. Under the bleachers of Taylor Stadium, the band played “Nothing Like a Dame,” while band members broke rank to form the word “Dames.” At the ﬁnal note, seven 22 lehigh alumni bulletin

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Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007

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