By one measure, the story of the Rosdahl family’s three-generation membership in the University of Minnesota Marching Band began roughly 50 years ago when the family’s matriarch, Caroline, joined the band.

But the better, and richer, story actually dates back some 65 years to the mid-1950s. That’s when Caroline (then Caroline Bunker) graduated from high school in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, where she was a proud saxophonist in the school’s marching band. After graduation, she enrolled at the U of M to study nursing—and she also intended to join the Marching Band. But at that time, female students were only allowed to be in the band for sit-down performances—and Caroline (A.S. ’57, B.A. ’60, M.A. ’68) did avail herself of that opportunity—but were prohibited from marching.

Deeply disappointed, she did the next best thing. She joined the marching band’s all-female auxiliary and handled mundane chores—taking care of uniforms, polishing spats—to assist the band. “We didn’t say anything because we didn’t know any different,” says Caroline, who retired from a 60-year nursing career five years ago at age 82. “It’s just what women did.”

The band’s official history, maintained by the music department in the College of Liberal Arts, notes the group was originally founded in 1892 as the 29-member University Cadet Band. “In 1910, the band presented the first formations and halftime ‘show’ during the Gopher football season,” the history says. “Included in the early formations was the first ‘Block M.’”

During WWII, women “filled in” with the marching band to replace men in the service, as in many other jobs. By 1950, a new “Girls’ Band” was formed, which later was called the “Women’s Division” of the marching band and remained for a number of years. Women were finally added as full members to the Marching Band in 1972. That was a pivotal year as Congress passed Title IX, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.

Caroline never had given up on marching as a Gopher, however. In 1974, at age 38, she reenrolled at the U of M for additional graduate classes and joined the band as its oldest member.

“When I joined the band at 38, the band director really wasn’t sure if I was there to cause trouble or if I was going to drop dead on the 50-yard line,” Caroline chuckles. “He’d come to me after every game and say, ‘how are you doing? Are you okay? You okay?’”

A decade later, her son, Keith Rosdahl (B.S. ’92), joined the marching band to play sousaphone. And then 30 years later, Keith’s daughters, Emily and Bailey, would join (in the color guard and on sousaphone, respectively).

Jamming through the generations

All the Rosdahls say there’s something special about being in a marching band; they describe it as a passion that entered their bloodstreams at an early age and never left. “You hear stories of people having dream colleges, but I had dream marching bands,” says Bailey. “I wanted to go to the U because I wanted to be in the marching band.”

Keith says he got the band bug from his mother, explaining that at that time, when the band wasn’t marching it sat in a designated section of Memorial Stadium. And because the tubas were in the back row, two rows of seats behind them were not prime locations for spectators. Instead of trying to sell those seats, the University designated those tickets for the alumni band. For kids like Keith, the seats were great, and in the thick of the action.

He got close to the band in other ways as well. When the marching band traveled, Caroline sometimes took young Keith with her. Following one trip, Keith’s teacher asked her students what they did over the weekend.

“He said, ‘My mother’s in the marching band. I went with them on a trip, and a gopher was my roommate,’” Caroline recalls. “So I got a call from the counselor and the nurse and the principal [at his school], and they wanted to talk to me right away because Keith is hallucinating all this and making up ridiculous stories. The final thing that threw them was when he said he had a gopher as a roommate. I said, ‘Actually, he did.’”

Those early experiences made a lasting impression on Keith. “I would say certainly by junior high or high school, I knew I was going to go to the University of Minnesota and be in the marching band,” he says.

Emily has a similar story about sitting behind the band. “One of the first experiences I had of the U, and the band, and football games in general, was sitting behind the tubas at football games,” she says. “I didn’t really care that much about the game per se, but I was always really excited when the band started playing.”

Caroline knows the feeling. “I don’t think any of us cared a whole lot about the football,” she says. “We just cared about the band.”

Keith, who is now an engineer, earned his bachelor’s degree in social work and played sousaphone in the marching band in 1984, 1987, and 1989. Emily, who is in the color guard of the current marching band, is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in interior design and plans to graduate next year. Bailey, who also plays sousaphone in the current band, is a preschool teacher at the U of M’s Child Development Laboratory School.

A musical family affair

A big part of the allure of a marching band, according to the Rosdahls, is the bond that forms with all the kindred spirits. “It’s a family,” Caroline says. “And what’s interesting is that because Keith and I were in the band pretty much at the same time, all of these friends of his are friends of mine, too.”

Emily also took advantage of her intergenerational bonds when she auditioned for the band. Marching bands usually have plenty of clarinetists, and that was Emily’s instrument. With a longtime interest in dance, she saw a better opportunity in the color guard.

“So, I asked one of my dad’s generation friends who was also in the color guard to kind of teach me the basic skills so that I could get into the band, and it worked. I’ve been doing that throughout all of marching band,” she says. 

And being in the marching band requires significant amounts of that kind of devotion: For starters, band members must attend two weeks of training camp, about 14 hours per day, before school starts in the fall. After school begins, the band practices two hours every day. The band, which has about 320 members, delivers the longest pregame show in the Big Ten at around 18 minutes, most of it in high-stepping mode. Band members must also memorize the songs each week—no sheet music.

“You go through a lot together,” Keith says. “It’s a lot of work, a lot of trials, and it’s all teamwork. ... And for this, you get two credits,” he says, laughing.

Each of the Rosdahls who march, and have marched, with the Pride of Minnesota say the hard work is worth it. They’d have it no other way.

Dick Dahl is a freelance writer in the Twin Cities.

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