4 songs take spotlight at team sporting events

There’s an air of excitement at Memorial Stadium as students and fans await the start of the game. Decked out in IU gear, faces disappearing in a sea of red, everyone in the stands chatters and laughs in anticipation for the team to take the field.

Finally, the players appear.

And the fans start to sing.

For decades, four songs have helped to define IU’s school spirit and unify students during athletic events. However, each song was written at a different time and for different reasons.

‘HAIL TO OLD IU’

“Hail to Old IU,” was written by J.T. Giles and acts as the official Alma Mater. The song was first performed in 1893, and Giles — the organizer of the IU glee club at the time — wrote the lyrics for the Hoosiers to perform at state contests. Because of the simplistic lyrics and shared melody with Cornell University’s fight song, there have been at least two attempts to replace the song.

‘INDIANA, OUR INDIANA’

The lyrics for “Indiana, Our Indiana” were written in 1912 by the student director of the IU Band, Russel P. Harker.

“The only Indiana University song at that time was ‘Hail to Old IU,’ and of course, it was not very effective in stirring enthusiasm at football games and other similar occasions,” Harker wrote in a 1949 letter. “It was only natural that I felt very keenly the need of a new song.”

While at a dance, Harker wrote most of the lyrics on the back of an envelope in between songs, and then coupled it with “Viking March,” a piece written by Carl King, conductor of the Barnum & Bailey Circus band.

The song was first performed at a football game against Northwestern University and has been played at every football and basketball game since.

Harker graduated in 1913 with a law degree, and in 1928, he was elected as Indiana’s Lieutenant Governor.

‘CHIMES OF INDIANA’

This song was composed by Indiana-native and jazz musician Hoagy Carmichael.

After a year of toying around with the music and lyrics, Carmichael performed the song at an Indiana Foundation Day ceremony, broadcast coast-to-coast on NBC in 1937 and dedicated the song to then-IU President Dr. William Lowe Bryan.

The class of 1935 presented this song to the University as a gift. The song was proposed as an official alma mater for years, and despite being declared as the alma mater by the IU Alumni Association before the end of the ’70s, the song had still not been officially adopted by the time of Carmichael’s death in 1982.

Ryan Rottman, a graduate student in the School of Optometry and former Marching Hundred trombone player, said he’s disappointed more students don’t know his favorite IU song, “Chimes of Indiana.”

“It’s a pretty song. It’s very tranquil and peaceful, but we don’t play it a lot,” Rottman said. “We try to incorporate it into our shows. Everyone just knows ‘Hail to Old IU.’”

Rottman said he never got sick of playing the songs during his years with the band.
“The colonial made us play each game win or lose,” Rottman said. “We try to do it. We try to keep up morale for the team as much as we can. It doesn’t get annoying.”

Rottman said he’s now too busy to be part of the band, but his first four years at IU were spent on the field with the team. The songs, he said, are an integral part of the tradition of IU.

“It instills spirit, because when you sing, it’s an interactive experience,” he said. “The fight song brings everyone together. It’s a sense of how we’re a student body.”

‘INDIANA FIGHT SONG’

The fourth song heard at athletic events on campus is the “Indiana Fight Song,” written and composed by Leroy Hinkle. When he died in 1970, Hinkle’s estate transferred the rights to the song directly to IU.


- Margaret Ely contributed to this story