Fat Bottomed Girls

We are going to the Fiesta Bowl! For the first time in 13 years, the University of Louisville has gotten a bowl game! Not just a bowl game….a Jan 1st bowl game. And where the football team goes, the band follows!! Any band going to a bowl games knows they are in for a ton of work getting ready. Hours and hours of rehearsal to perfect the halftime show that 30 seconds of MAY be aired on National TV. The same music practiced over and over again, crescendo here….decrescendo there….so much practice! Hours/ days working on the perfect spacing of individual sets to show off marching skills while belting out complicated music. I’m sure thats what most bands do…….I am SURE that’s how Alabama’s “Million Dollar Band” prepared for the same bowl game….and then some.

But not ours! We definitely were not that band. We did practice “Just a Gigalo” and “Fat Bottomed Girls”. And we perfected our set on the field where we literally made a BUTT. Ya know, for Fat Bottomed Girls…get it? HEAR IT HERE: https://youtu.be/EN-Zyf1MGUs?si=UMhPUxzG_GcSV1uJ Our steps were simple and our music was written by music majors in the band. No fancy band here. If you could play an instrument, you were in! Our favorite Cadence to March to was EMBO (Eat my butt out). We partied as much as we practiced and we didn’t really care what we looked like.

OUR band was roughly 1/3 the size of Alabama’s band and also about 1/3 as annoying. The Million Dollar Band, as they love to call themselves, showed us up in sound and visual performance. They were good, no doubt. But our Cardinal Marching Band was without a doubt more crazy and probably a ton more fun! As far as I know, we didn’t embarrass the University but we did enjoy a free trip to Tempe, AZ via plane (my first time on a plane). Stayed in a free hotel, were given money for food that was used for alcohol. We enjoyed shopping in Tempe, marching in the Fiesta Bowl Parade as well as a pregame and halftime show at the actual game. And we BEAT Alabama in the game that year (1991)! 34-7.

I got to March for two years with ULs band. Had the honor of playing My Old Kentucky Home at the Derby. Am forever immortalized on a CD that we made at the Kentucky Center for the Arts where we even sang ULs Alma Mater in 4 part harmony. All before the University oh so politely asked me not to come back because of my .0875 GPA. Hahaha! These things happen when you choose not to go to class for damn near a year. But don’t worry, I didn’t waste my parents’ money….it was my own to blow.