'Stanford alum Eugene Danaher knows exactly how to fix his alma mater's problem: get rid of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band.

Over the years, the band and its antics have made the news too many times for this 1946 graduate. Once, Danaher even picked up an international newspaper while vacationing in Europe and read about the band parodying polygamy at Brigham Young University.

He has written letters to the university president, alumni association president and the dean of student affairs to "excise this cancerous student activity" to no avail. He has detailed its sins, which he insists include, among others, urinating on the stadium floor in October during halftime against Arizona State. It matters little to him that the band fired its tree mascot in February for public drunkenness.

"Michigan at Ann Arbor -- they have clean uniforms and snappy routines," said Danaher. "There are plenty of examples of bands that could be used as models that could bring the Stanford band back into the fraternity of good bands."

People either love or hate the band. Rarely do they feel neutral about it. Stanford's band is a scatter band, meaning its members race wildly onto the field for football halftime shows instead of orderly marching. Such bands are a tradition at Eastern schools such as Columbia, Harvard and Yale where they are called scramble bands. Despite their prevalence, Stanford's band has managed to attain a national reputation in sports circles and is the most famous in the West.


















Yet it's at a crossroads. Next year, the band will move from its beat-up temporary quarters into a renovated squash court. It will perform in a new stadium. And a new athletic director will help oversee its operations. The changes come in what former and current band members describe as a more restrictive climate.

Halftime scripts undergo closer scrutiny. The band is on alcohol probation.

All the flux has prompted the band's current assistant manager to agree to stay past graduation in 2007 to shepherd the changes.

"The next year or two is really going to be very important in determining the next 10 to 20 years of the band," said junior Adam Cohen, the assistant manager. "Once they set the precedent -- 'You're not allowed to do X,' it's nearly impossible to change it back. It works in a positive direction, too, once we establish this is the way we enter the stadium, this is the cool stuff we do on game day, this is what we do in the shack."

The university doesn't want to squelch the band's spirit, but there are rules of conduct, said Greg Boardman, vice provost for student affairs. The band and university are working together to chart the future.

"When not responsible, one is held accountable, and we have a process to address that," he said. "This is a free-spirited group."





Sometimes Stanford's halftime skits are apolitical, but over the years the band has developed a critical mass of controversial shows that have ended with Stanford apologizing: At the University of Oregon in 1990, band members lampooned the environmental controversy over loggers and the spotted owl. At BYU in 2004, the band's five dancers wore wedding veils.

Perhaps most famously, in a 1991 game against Notre Dame, a Stanford band member dressed as a nun conducted the band using a crucifix for a baton. The Fighting Irish indefinitely suspended Stanford from their stadium. The band kept it up, and in a 1997 game at Stanford, members parodied the Irish Potato Famine with a skit featuring Seamus O'Hungry. That last one created such a furor it made a syndicated Ann Landers column.

And then there's the controversy the band would rather forget: that time in 1982 when band members, thinking the clock had run out on Cal's kickoff return, ran onto the field, only to have Cal score the winning touchdown -- thanks to a zany series of laterals -- during all the confusion.





But in the end, the Stanford band has the moral and financial support of band alumni. And that means something.

Former band members chipped in enough for a seven-figure renovation of squash courts to replace the old "band shack," which is housed in a temporary portable decorated with road signs, a poster of nearly naked women, trash and an empty unmoored toilet that has, on occasion, served as a punch bowl. One room is so abused, the school condemned it.

In spite of all that -- or maybe because of it -- the allure is great. Sophomore Kalena Masching remembers dressing as a Stanford band member with a clown nose and mismatched shoes as an eighth- grader in Palo Alto.

"I like that it accepts everybody," she explained. "You can show up and be anything here."

You don't even have to know how to play an instrument. The band promises to teach you how.

Giancarlo Aquilanti, the band's musical director, oversees Monday practices. A sweater tied around his shoulders, he doesn't seem a likely leader for a wild band. The university had trouble finding a permanent director following the retirement of Art Barnes in 1997, who led the band for more than 30 years. Giancarlo, who teaches music theory and composition, didn't jump at the opportunity.

"I get involved only for music reasons," he said, adding that he doesn't touch field shows. "I do rehearsal and arrange music and teach students to play instruments."





Stanford's band used to be a traditional marching band. When Barnes began his tenure in 1963, he insisted that the students run the band. And now he points out -- or perhaps laments -- that although he was a full music professor, 90 percent of what he's known for is the band. So why did he lead it?

"No one else would," he said. "The music department was and still is esoteric."

Although the band continues to get in trouble, former band members say it plays with more limits than it used to.


Steve Blasberg, a 1972 graduate, can remember a time when the band could say anything but a blatant obscenity. And there wasn't a fear of lawsuits back then. No one had to sign a waiver before traveling. Band members drank publicly like other students. The band never would have taken preemptive action and fired its tree mascot for public drunkenness the way it did in February.

As if to underscore his point, the band's new tree -- which underwent tryouts involving a bra made of taffy -- was recently suspended from the NCAA basketball tournament for its antics.




But frankly, getting in trouble is part of band lore and therefore part of the fun. And so in some ways, members appreciate rankled alums like Danaher.

The latest embarrassment for Danaher came when he heard a winter Olympics television announcer say the cacophony of clowns and other riotous behavior during the closing ceremonies looked like the Stanford band. These comments, he wrote The Chronicle, "reflected very unfavorably."

The band, though, isn't going to be disbanded any time soon, said vice provost Boardman, who added it's now "part of Stanford's culture."

As for Danaher's complaint about band members peeing on the stadium floor, band members argue their legend has skewed reality. Maybe someone peed on the floor in 1986. But not this year, said sophomore Sam Urmy.

"The band made important administrative changes, and no one is peeing on the floor now." '