4B
5
TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com
FootballSaturday, September 27, 2019

Ten months later, Kelly Ber-

toni still remembers the con-
versation.

The drum major for the 

Michigan marching band stood 
at the doors of Revelli Hall, the 
band’s rehearsal space, helping 
then-Director of Operations 
Maggie St. Clair bag up banan-
as and bagels and granola bars 
for their trip to Ohio State last 
Nov. 24. St. Clair, decked out in 
maize and blue, turned to Ber-
toni.

“Kelly, make sure you have 

your breakfast, too.”

They embraced, then parted 

to load the buses. Bertoni didn’t 
know that simple early-morn-
ing conversation would be their 
last. She didn’t know that trag-
edy was about to strike. And 
she didn’t know that soon, she 
would be sitting in that same 
Revelli lobby, figuring out how 
best to honor St. Clair’s mem-
ory.

St. Clair was the de facto 

mom of the band. She organized 
everything — from coordinat-
ing trips to ordering uniform 
accessories to securing build-
ing access. More than that, she 
made herself available to any-
one who needed her. For over 
30 years, band members knew 
that if something was wrong, 

they could talk to her and she 
would listen. She would know.

Senior cymbals player Erin 

Sickrey 
remembers 
goofing 

around with her friends once 
in Revelli when the handle 
of a door broke off. Worried, 
Sickrey walked in holding the 
handle — and ran right into St. 
Clair. With her usual grace, St. 
Clair let Sickrey know it wasn’t 
a big deal, it could be fixed.

St. Clair took the time to get 

to know band members, even 
keeping in touch with alumni 
and asking about their fami-
lies. She was always there to 
say hi or offer a hug. And at 64, 
it seemed like she wouldn’t be 
stopping any time soon.

But shortly after loading the 

buses that November day, the 
students realized something 
was wrong. In the middle of 
attendance, they were told that 
there had been a medical emer-
gency. Eventually, administra-
tors confirmed it had been St. 
Clair, but there was little infor-
mation from the hospital or her 
husband at first.

And after the three-hour bus 

ride to Columbus, the students 
got lunch, then were told St. 
Clair had died.

“That was the worst day of 

my life,” said marching band 

director John Pasquale, one of 
the administrators tasked with 
bearing the bad news.

Shortly after, the band had 

to go out and perform a show 
in front of fans of their most 
hated rival, knowing they were 
in a hostile environment. Ohio 
State held a moment of silence 
for St. Clair in the Horseshoe 
and all things considered, the 
fans were pretty respectful. But 
that couldn’t possibly numb the 
pain in that moment.

To senior Lexi Willison, 

a trumpet player, the actual 
show that day was a blur. But 
she remembers all the other 
details. She, too, says it was one 
of the worst days of her life.

“Being there with everybody 

else, all of us going through the 
same thing, helped,” Willison 
said. “But nothing really could 
ever make up for the fact, what 
had happened, what we just 
experienced, us still having to 
go out there and do our jobs.”

When the band traveled to 

Atlanta for the Peach Bowl, 
it was clear just how much 
they had lost. Not only was St. 
Clair the emotional heartbeat 
of the band, she was also the 
one who organized the logis-
tics of a bowl trip — scouting 
the venue beforehand, making 

sure everything was ready to 
go — and there was an element 
of disorganization that wasn’t 
there before. Everyone could 
feel it.

In April, Bertoni and the 

rest of the show design com-
mittee met in the lobby of Rev-
elli. Their undertaking was, in 
some ways, normal. After all, 
the 
student-run 
committee 

meets every year, brainstorm-
ing show ideas for the next sea-
son. But this time, one loomed 
over the rest: a show to honor 
St. Clair.

St. Clair loved Lady Gaga 

and Bruno Mars. The commit-
tee discussed the merits of all 
those shows, but eventually 
landed on her favorite — Mary 
Poppins.

The 
student 
committee 

doesn’t have the final say in 
what shows make the sched-
ule. They present their ideas 
to Pasquale, and he decides 
which ones to run based on 
target demographics, difficul-
ty and how easy it is to secure 
the rights, among other things. 
Pasquale then announces the 
lineup at the beginning of band 
week — a two-week boot camp 
of sorts before school starts 
each year.

This year during band week, 

the members found out that 
not only were they doing Mary 
Poppins in honor of St. Clair, 
but they could go all out.

The marching band operates 

in show cycles based on how 
long they have to prepare for a 
given game. If there was a show 
the week before, it’s a one-week 
cycle — usually simpler shows 
that are easy to learn in less 
time. Because the band travels 
just to Michigan State, Notre 
Dame and Ohio State, the Big 
Ten season often operates in 
two-week show cycles, with an 
extra week to prepare when the 
team is away.

But this season, there was a 

quirk in Michigan’s schedule 
— an early season bye week, 
followed by an away game at 
Wisconsin, then a home tilt 
with Rutgers. That presented 
a rare opportunity: a three-
week show cycle. The longer 
the show cycle, the more intri-
cate the shows could be, and a 
three-week cycle — in which 
the band has three weeks to 
learn and prepare for one show 
— is a rare luxury.

The decision to use the Mary 

Poppins show for the Rutgers 
game was obvious. Mary Pop-
pins will be one of the lon-
gest and most difficult shows 

the band has ever done, and 
throughout rehearsals, the sec-
tion leaders have made it clear 
that a show that means so much 
needs to be perfect.

“This is probably the most 

seriously people have ever 
taken a show,” Sickrey said. “ 
… In other shows, you can goof 
off a little bit. It’s more fun. But 
for these ones, the rank lead-
ers are very much emphasiz-
ing, ‘There’s no excuses on this 
show, this has to be perfect, 
because this is the reason that 
we’re doing it.’ ”

There’s a story Willison tells 

some of the new members who 
didn’t know St. Clair or her 
impact on the band.

Her dad was in the marching 

band during his time at Michi-
gan in the late 1980s, and St. 
Clair was his director of opera-
tions, too. They’d stayed in 
touch, and near 2011, St. Clair 
invited the Willison family to 
tour Revelli during a rehearsal. 
St. Clair showed Lexi — a bud-
ding trumpet player in her mid-
dle school band — the trumpet 
lockers, pictures of past sec-
tions and a mural with a visual 
representation of the music for 
“The Victors.” The trip played 
a small role in Willison com-
ing to Michigan, and when she 

got there, St. Clair remembered 
her and asked about her par-
ents and her younger siblings.

St. Clair wasn’t known as 

the band mom for nothing. It 
was almost as if the St. Clair 
family and three decades of the 
Michigan marching band fam-
ily were one and the same, and 
nothing demonstrated that like 
St. Clair reaching out to Wil-
lison’s long-graduated dad and 
treating his entire family like it 
was her own.

When Willison was told of St. 

Clair’s death, she came to terms 
not only with what had hap-
pened, but the fact that she’d 
have to tell her dad — until she 
paraded into the stadium and 
a fellow band member pointed 
out that her parents were there 
in the audience. They’d come 
down to Columbus to surprise 
her. When the stadium PA 
announced a moment of silence 
for St. Clair, the secret was out.

After the game, as the band 

trekked back to its buses, Wil-
lison ran into her dad. They 
had a good cry together — two 
generations of marching band 
members touched by St. Clair 
and everything she did for the 
program.

There are different ways to 

drive home St. Clair’s impact 

for those who didn’t know 
her. Some people, like Bertoni 
— who grew up in St. Clair’s 
hometown of Chelsea, Mich., 
went to the same church as her 
family and worked as an assis-

tant to St. Clair for a semester — 
tell touching personal stories. 
Others only have to mention 
her job description. Even the 
freshmen realize how much 
goes into running a marching 
band, and that St. Clair did a 
lot of the dirty work you only 
see once you’ve been inside the 
Revelli doors.

“You think of the smallest 

details and that’s what Maggie 
did,” Bertoni said. “Ordering 
the ties for some of the GSIs 
and the scarves. She helped me 
get my uniform and just the dry 

cleaning, the bills and the man-
agement. … And I think a lot of 
people didn’t realize what that 
was until unfortunately with 
her passing, trying to analyze 
the situation, how we were 
going to move forward and best 
prepare moving forward, it was 
like, ‘Oh, Maggie was doing the 
job of like five people, that’s 

crazy.’ ”

Of 
course, 
the 
march-

ing band has a new director 
of operations now, Kimberly 
Smith, and Pasquale has taken 
the time to emphasize that 
she’s not St. Clair’s replace-
ment: “She’s not filling in Mag-
gie’s shoes, she’s making her 
own shoes,” as Sickrey recalls 
Pasquale’s message.

That alone is telling. Smith 

could do everything perfectly, 
but it would be nearly impos-
sible for anyone to match St. 
Clair’s impact.

When the marching band 

parades out of the tunnel 
Saturday against the Scarlet 
Knights, it will all mean more. 
It’s not just that they’re per-
forming St. Clair’s favorite 
music, or that the show is in 
honor of her, but that some of 
her family will be in the stands, 
along with countless alumni. 
On Sunday, the marching band 
is hosting a celebration of life, 
and many former members are 
coming back for it. The band 
will perform there, too — both 
their traditional repertoire like 
the fight song and alma mater, 
and selections from Mary Pop-
pins. The whole weekend will 
be dedicated to remembering 
St. Clair and gaining closure.

“It’s … difficult to imagine 

that this happened less than 
a year ago, in some ways, so 
it’s still kind of fresh,” Bertoni 
said. “And I think that that is 
something, sometimes I’m like, 
‘Wow, a lot has happened in 
that time,’ but at the same time, 
it’s still fairly recent.”

Nobody who was there will 

soon forget that morning in 
Columbus, but there’s no bet-
ter way to honor someone who 
gave her all to the Michigan 
marching band than putting 
on one of the most ambitious 
shows they’ve ever done — and 
approaching it with St. Clair’s 
enthusiasm and zeal.

When she was alive, knowl-

edge 
of 
St. 

Clair’s 

impact 
was 
largely 
con-
fined 
inside 
the 
doors 

of Revelli Hall. But on Satur-
day, in front of 100,000 people, 
the band will have an oppor-
tunity to convey a slice of who 
she was and what she meant 
to 30 years of marching band 
members.

“We’re all very much aware 

of why we’re doing this, who 
we’re doing this for,” Willison 
said. “And it’s an honor to be 
able to be one of the people who 
can 
honor 

her.”

MARCHING BAND TO HONOR LATE ADMINISTRATOR WITH SPECIAL TRIBUTE
THE SHOW GOES ON

