The History of the Pep Band

The Pep Band gets some press once in a while...

The Dark Ages (pre 1985)

Before 1986 the Pep Band was a wholy owned subsidiary of the Big Red Marching Band, and its Head Manager was merely a member of the Big Red Marching Bandstaff, elected like any other member of the Marching Bandstaff. The members of the Pep Band were just Marching Bandies who attended other Athletics functions and played at them, though a few non-Marching Bandies did come out as well. The number of these was; however, very limited, as the Pep Band did not solicit extra membership for itself.

As far as conductors went, in the fall, only one was elected. The Drum Major's responsibilities included being the other conductor of the Pep Band, a responsibility still held in that the Drum Major is the backup conductor in the event that neither elected conductors can attend an event. In the spring it was traditional that the outgoing BRB Head Manager would be one of the two conductors.

The Days of Transformation (1985-6)

All this began to change in 1985. Sarah Mendell '87 became co-Pep Band Manager with Duncan Perry '84 Grad '86 (Sarah would become head manager of the BRB the next year and Duncan had been show committee chair for three years while he was in the band, to display the heavy BandStaff connection). Anyway, Sarah did an amazing job in taking the band to new heights. She got tons of people to show up for games (of course, the soccer, basketball, hockey and lacrosse teams were winning teams then). Sarah invited non-Big Red Band members to participate. She also saw the need for the Pep Band to get its hands on its own funding and the only way to do this was by the Pep Band becoming a separate organization.

In November 1985 (while those of us now in the Pep Band were still in grade school), the entire Big Red Band voted to create a separate organization called the Cornell Big Red Pep Band. It passed very easily, only about 10 people voted against it. So, the first Big Red Pep Band staff was elected in December 1985. The first Big Red Pep Band manager was Bob Pittman '87. The rest of the first Big Red Pep Band staff was: Scott Pesner '87, treasurer; Leora Rosen '87 (fundraising); Sandy Young '88, publicity/secretary; David Russo '89, uniforms & equipment; and Joe Huber '89, librarian. The spring conductors were Barb Werner '86 and Rich Goldstein '86, who was another person who reinvigorated the Pep Band during this process (the fall conductor was Stu Pergament '87 along with Mark Mandarano, drum major).

The funding was worked out by Bob Pittman and Scott Pesner, with help from Georgian Leonard, our former Public Affairs leason in the Athletic Department. It was a great year for the Band...the basketball team was doing amazingly--in fact, Athletics sent the Pep Band on the road for the first time with the hoopsters and paid for our hotel rooms (It has been done several times since, but this was a first). The hockey team went all the way to win the ECACs, and the lacrosse team was doing well and would make it to the finals of the national championship the next year. It was a great first year all around.

Brewing Life, Development, and Conflict

The second Big Red Pep Band staff elections were tough. Three well-qualified candidates were running for manager and two of the three were NOT members of the Big Red Marching Band. After an hour and half of debate, Sandy Young '88, one of the two non-band members, was elected. The second band staff consisted of Doug Onsi '90 as treasurer, Marc Goldman '90 as fundraising chair and Stu Pergament '87 and Scott Pesner '87 and myself as spring conductors. Since then the Pep Band has functioned much as we know it now, and we can rejoice in its 11 years of existence.

Conflict, of a Different Sort

Since the formation of the pep band in 1985, few people would question our reason for existence: playing at hockey games.  This began to change, however, in 1996, with the hiring of Scott Thompson as men's basketball head coach.  Coach Thompson was a big fan of the band, and made it a lot more pleasant for us to be at Newman Arena for the basketball games.

By 1999, the band had moved away from the mentality of being exclusively a hockey band.  There was a solid group of people who preferred playing at basketball rather than hockey, but because hockey was such a big part of our history, it wasn't easy to make such a significant transition.  Since attending hockey games was given top priority in the pep band constitution, playing at more basketball games wasn't a matter of just making a quick resolution.  Amending the constitution took a series of meetings, where some of the traditional informality of the band had to be dropped.