By Ned C. Deihl
It’s the 50th birthday for the PSU Silks! Thinking back 50 years it seems like a long time has passed but also feels like just a few years ago.
In the early 70s after a few years of tweaking, the totally revamped PSU pregame was solidly in place. The Floating LIONS was becoming the Blue Band’s downfield trademark and we wanted to dress up the band. The flags would front the band entering down the field and would then serve as a background for the formations. They would add a bit of color to the all-male band, waving high above the band.
The flag-carrying Blue Banders hadn't qualified for playing a horn but had to be very good marchers, of course: "pick 'em up"!! A few trombonists were understandably unhappy when they found they were no longer the front line on the downfield block. I know how exhilarating it is to march out front as I did at Miami of Ohio when our band paraded through town before each home game -- with clarinets in the front rank.
My wife Jan made the first Blue Band flags (a la Betsy Ross?), spending many hours on the floor cutting and hemming the three-foot by seven-foot flags. She bought the materials from an outlet in Altoona, choosing shimmering satin-finish fabric in differing colors to represent the school colors of the various opponents in Penn State's schedule. We purchased their long wooden dowel poles from O.W. Houts. Now, the PSU silks are all blue but we have other opponents’ flags hanging in the huge band room -- adding new ones to the Big Fourteen?
Later, flags were called "silks,” perhaps due to drum corps influence. Their poles are now lightweight aluminum and the colors are all blue and white. With those changes, flag twirling with intricate routines has become a big part of the Blue Band half-time shows.
Typically, the Blue Band marches a full block of silks with 30 on-field performers. But just as the Blue Band has grown in numbers, so too the silks might grow in numbers sometime in the future.
For now, it’s HAPPY 50th to the Silks. Here’s looking at 50 years more.
