IU parade gets ‘Wacky, Wild’ despite cold weather

Before the 51st Annual IU Homecoming Parade started, the crimson raincoat-clad Marching Hundred tried to keep warm while practicing in the Forest Quad parking lot.

Some of the euphonium players did jumping jacks, and the tuba players hopped in place as they played. The trombone section continued a tradition of huddling, all white-gloved hands in the middle, and chanting “kill” louder and louder.

“We have to sacrifice a member of this section in order to bless the performance,” freshman trombonist Ross Wertjes said.

Though last year’s parade was canceled because of rain, this year hundreds turned out Friday at the IU Student Alumni Association-sponsored parade to kick off Homecoming Weekend. The theme was “Wacky Wild Crimson Style.”

The rain and cold did not keep graduate students Nikole Miller and Marwa Ragheb inside.

“It’s not a good day for a parade, but at least they’re having one this year,” Miller said.

A whistle signaled that it was time for the parade to begin. Spectators lined the sidewalks on Third Street and Indiana Avenue, took photos with their camera phones and cheered. In front of the Lambda Chi Alpha house stood a row of students with red bead necklaces next to a dozen children with plastic bags weighed down with free candy and T-shirts.

The Marching Hundred Alumni Band was crammed into a stakebed truck. It played the IU fight song as spectators clapped and sang along. At one point, freshman football player Jamonne Chester jumped out of the old-school fire engine that he and other football players were in. The crowd screamed and put its hands in the air as he gave high-fives.

Four other fire engines’ sirens wailed. Members of area Shriners clubs zipped around in circles in tiny convertibles.

An Irish dance team came after bagpipers from the Bloomington Fire Department’s pipes and drum corps marched by.

Even Dori, the Alumni Association’s Monroe County Chapter puggle mascot, showed her IU spirit by walking the parade wearing a crimson IU jersey.

A man in the I Association’s 50-Year I-Men float yelled, “It can’t be any more fun than this!”

Alumna Mindy McDaniel came from Tennessee to see her nephew play in the Marching Hundred. She said the parade was awesome and brought out a lot of IU pride.

“It’s worth sitting out in this freezing cold,” she said.

By the end of the parade, Miller and Ragheb stood holding red flying disks from the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center filled with candy and fliers. Ragheb said the parade was fun but that she wished she had gotten a few more T-shirts thrown her way.

“Never got a Frisbee before,” Miller said.

“See, that’s progress,” Ragheb said, laughing.

The largest crowd was at the Sample Gates, where the parade ended with a pep rally.

There, George Taliaferro and Anthony Thompson were honored. They were the parade’s grand marshals and are the only living IU players in the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame.

Taliaferro was presented a rare find – his rookie football card. In 1949 Taliaferro became the first black man to be drafted into the NFL.

Athletics Director Fred Glass, wearing a pink cap, told the crowd to go to Saturday’s football game against Illinois. Coach Bill Lynch echoed the sentiment.

“Like Fred said – Go Hoosiers,” Lynch yelled.