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Big Bertha (drum)
Encyclopedia
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
used by the Longhorn Band
The University of Texas Longhorn Band
The University of Texas Longhorn Band, also known as the Showband of the Southwest or LHB, is the marching band of The University of Texas at Austin. The Longhorn Band was founded in 1900 by a distinguished professor of chemistry, Dr. Eugene P. Schoch. The band is currently under the direction of...
of The University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
. The Big Bertha name was chosen to evoke the famous German Big Bertha howitzer
Big Bertha (Howitzer)
Big Bertha Bertha") is the name of a type of super-heavy howitzer developed by the famous armaments manufacturer Krupp in Germany on the eve of World War I...
.
Description
The university considers Big Bertha to be the world's largest drum; it measures 8 feet (2.44 m) in diameter, 44 inches (1.12 m) in depth, and stands 10 feet (3 m) tall when on its four-wheeled cart. The drum weighs more than 500 pounds (226.8 kg). Big Bertha is wheeled onto the field for the half-timeHalf-time
In some team sports such as association football and rugby, matches are played in two halves. Half-time is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match...
show during varsity football
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
games, and is used in other occasions such as parade
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
s and spirit rallies. The drum is managed by the Bertha Crew, sometimes called "drum wranglers." The crew move the drum and play it after touchdown
Touchdown
A touchdown is a means of scoring in American and Canadian football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone.-Description:...
s. Big Bertha is nicknamed the "Sweetheart of the Longhorn Band".
History
In 1922, the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
commissioned C.G. Conn Instruments to build a bass drum for the school. Its first use was in the 1922 game versus rival Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. When the University of Chicago ended its varsity football program, the drum was stored under the school's bleachers
Stagg Field
Amos Alonzo Stagg Field is the name of two different football fields for the University of Chicago. The earliest Stagg Field is probably best remembered for its role in a landmark scientific achievement by Enrico Fermi during the Manhattan Project. The site of the first nuclear reaction received...
. It later became radioactively contaminated
Radioactive contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological contamination, is radioactive substances on surfaces, or within solids, liquids or gases , where their presence is unintended or undesirable, or the process giving rise to their presence in such places...
as a result of research for the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
conducted at the stadium during the 1940s.
Colonel D. Harold Byrd, a former Longhorn Band member, brought the drum to the university in 1955 after purchasing it from the University of Chicago for $1.00 and paying to have it decontaminated and restored.
In 1961, the University of Texas and Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
chapters of Kappa Kappa Psi
Kappa Kappa Psi
Kappa Kappa Psi is a fraternity for college and university band members. It was founded on November 27, 1919 at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College in Stillwater, Oklahoma. William Scroggs, now regarded as the "Founder," together with "Mr. Kappa Kappa Psi" A...
pledged to bring their drums to the national convention in Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
; however, only the Purdue Boilermakers showed up with the Purdue Big Bass Drum
Purdue Big Bass Drum
The Purdue Big Bass Drum is a percussion instrument played by the All-American Marching Band of Purdue University. At a height of more than ten feet , it is often called the World's Largest Drum. Since its inception, it has become a lasting symbol of the marching band as well as the university...
, thus claiming the title of "World's Largest Drum". In March 1980 a Kappa Kappa Psi pledge class hand-scraped years of toxic lead paint
Lead paint
Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead, a heavy metal, that is used as pigment, with lead chromate and lead carbonate being the most common. Lead is also added to paint to speed drying, increase durability, retain a fresh appearance, and resist moisture that causes corrosion...
from the body of the drum and the drum's trailer returning the finish to a high luster. The 6 pledges' names are inscribed on the inner wall of the drum and can only be seen when the drum heads are removed.
The Big Bertha name was chosen to evoke the famous German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Big Bertha howitzer
Big Bertha (Howitzer)
Big Bertha Bertha") is the name of a type of super-heavy howitzer developed by the famous armaments manufacturer Krupp in Germany on the eve of World War I...
. In 2005, the university celebrated the 50th anniversary of Big Bertha.