The Wall Street Journal - 26.11.2019

A12| Tuesday, November 26, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

lection committee chairman Kirby

Hocutt said “a conference champi-

onship being added to the résumé is

important when being compared to

comparable teams.”

The question that could deter-

mine the postseason fate of Utah is

how much does the selection com-

mittee value a loss? In other words,

Alabama’s November loss to then-

second-ranked LSU is likely to look

stronger than Utah’s mid-Septem-

ber drubbing by unranked Southern

California.

“Who you lose to is always im-

portant,” said former Oregon foot-

ball coach and athletic director

Mike Bellotti.

HEADING INTO LASTweekend,

the Pac-12 Conference was one of

the biggest surprises of the college

football season. Two of its teams

found themselves on the cusp of

cracking the top four of the College

Football Playoff rankings, with Ore-

gon ranked sixth and Utah seventh.

But after 60 minutes of dismal

football from the Ducks in the des-

ert on Saturday night, the Pac-12’s

playoff FOMO (fear of missing out)

looks set to continue for another

year. Oregon (9-2) lost 31-28 to un-

ranked Arizona State, which entered

Saturday’s contest on a four-game

losing streak, and left Utah (10-1) as

the sole one-loss team in the Pac-12.

But even if the Utes win out and

claim the Pac-12 crown, it’s doubtful

that the selection committee would

see them as the best one-loss team.

The reason is that their opponent in

the conference championships is

They dance, high-knee march and spin on college fields. As traditions change, so do the faces of campus entertainers.

New Faces of the Sideline

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MICHIGAN MARCHING BAND PHOTOGRAPHY (2); JOHN MERSITS/CSM/ZUMA PRESS; BRETT ADAIR PADELFORD/USC

SPORTS

From left to right, Brendan Ryan of the Michigan dance team; Kelly Bertoni, drum major of the Michigan band, and Samuel Jackson II, Notre Dame’s leprechaun, entertain fans during football games.

of mine,” she said.

Michigan dance team coach Val-

erie Stead Potsos recruitedBrendan

Ryanfrom his Shelby Township,

Mich., high school like an athlete—

because, technically, he is one. Mich-

igan’s dance team is part of its ath-

letic department. Potsos recognized

Ryan’s skill and charisma, and in

2017, he became the first man on the

Michigan dance team.

“We started having a lot of con-

versations as he was going through

the admissions process: Are you

ready to handle this?” Potsos said.

He was. Ryan has helped Michigan

maintain its regular top-10 finishes

at Universal Dance Association na-

tional competitions and performs at

football games, where dancers must

execute just like the blocking-and-

tackling Wolverines do. They memo-

rize more than 60 sideline routines

and must be ready to per-

form whichever one the

team captains call when a

song starts.

“They’ll say, ‘Bubble!’

and we all start doing the

same routine,” Ryan said. Of

Michigan Stadium, he said,

“Running out into a crowd of

110,000 people, there’s no feel-

ing like it.”

Stephen Longlast school year

became the first man on the dance

team at Baker University, a small lib-

eral arts school in Baldwin City, Kan.,

an hour southwest of his hometown

of Kansas City, Kan.

“I was a little nervous at first

just because I am a city person,”

Long said. His mom also was

nervous, he said, but grew more

comfortable as he settled in.

Long said he’s found accep-

tance—from Baker athletes,

students, professors and

staff. “The cafeteria ladies,

they all know who I am,” he

said. “And a lot of support-

ing parents come up to me.”

He said the most contro-

versy he’s experienced is

over whether he would use

though archrival Ohio State claims

the Big Ten Conference’s first: Shel-

ley Graf, in 1981.

For decades, about half or more

of the high-school students attend-

ing summer workshops at the Mas-

sachusetts-based Drum Major Acad-

emy have been female, academy

owner Jeanne Parks said. Many col-

lege marching bands didn’t include

female musicians until the 1970s,

but in recent years more women

have been trying out for drum ma-

jor, Parks said.

“They’re finally able to take own-

ership of it and not be trepidatious

about it,” Parks said.

Bertoni, who’s from Chelsea,

Mich., twice was elected by her

bandmates after a

monthslong applica-

tion-and-tryout pro-

cess that began

with a dozen or

more candi-

dates. “This

wasadream

T

o break the ice at

Notre Dame pep ral-

lies,Samuel Jackson

IIopens by saying,

“You’re probably won-

dering why this lepre-

chaun looks a bit different. Yes, I

know I’m tall.”

Jackson (no relation to the actor)

is the second African-American man

to act as the Fighting Irish mascot

at Notre Dame, after Mike Brown in

the late 1990s-early 2000s. The se-

nior from Huntsville, Ala., brings a

dramatic approach to performing at

football games—he’s majoring in

film, television and theater and

American studies--but realizes his

impact goes beyond entertainment.

“My race is something that you

can’t ignore,” Jackson said. “So un-

derstanding that I am able and in a

position to represent my university,

as diverse and as inclusive as it

prides itself to be, is a wonderful

thing.”

Notre Dame’s leprechaun gig is

too big for just one person, so three

leprechauns work various sporting

and alumni events.Lynnette

Wukie, a junior from Elyria, Ohio,

this year became the first woman to

serve as the Fighting Irish’s lepre-

chaun, a tradition that stretches to

the 1960s. (Before that, a series of

live dog mascots including Irish

Terriers roamed the sidelines.)

Wukie, who identifies as mixed-

race, was a cheerleader at a high

school that didn’t allow the air-

borne stunts that many college

cheerleaders do, but still wanted to

be an ambassador for Notre Dame.

“I went to a lot of sporting events,

so I was watching the mascot more

and more, and I was like, ‘I could do

that,’ ” Wukie said.

Through her work with a campus-

broadcast group she metConal Fa-

gan, who last school year became

the first actual Irish student to serve

as Notre Dame’s leprechaun. Fagan

is back this year.

“The night before, Conal texted

me: ‘There’s 15 hours until the appli-

cation is due. You better be applying

to be the leprechaun.’”

Wukie made it. She’s been toasted

BYRACHELBACHMAN

Pac-12 Looks Set to Miss the Playoff

lesser Oregon team.

Meanwhile, Alabama (10-1) is in a

better spot. Despite losing their

starting quarterback in Week 12,

when Tua Tagovailoa went down

with a season-ending hip injury, the

Crimson Tide made a strong case to

retain their No. 5 ranking when

they steamrolled Western Carolina

66-3 with backup Mac Jones under

center. Next weekend they’ll face

Auburn, a team that is currently

ranked 15th and beat Oregon in the

season opener. How much an Iron

Bowl win will help Alabama de-

pends on where Auburn and Oregon

land relative to each other when the

selection committee releases its lat-

est rankings on Tuesday.

One thing Utah has going for it:

previous selection committees put

great value on winning conference

championships. Of the 20 teams

that have appeared in the semifinal

since 2014, just three did not win

their conference. In 2017, then-se-

Oregon, which is suddenly dimin-

ished as a two-loss team.

If Clemson (11-0), Louisiana State

(11-0) and Ohio State (11-0) finish

the season as undefeated confer-

ence champions, the fourth spot in

the semifinal would likely go to a

one-loss team. In order for the

committee to bump a Pac-12 team

into that spot, either Oregon or

Utah would need one more quality

win.

Last week, such a win seemed

guaranteed to the Oregon-Utah win-

ner for the Pac-12 title on Dec. 6.

But now Oregon is 9-2. The se-

lection committee will no doubt de-

mote Oregon after its upset loss.

Utah could head into the champion-

ship ranked higher than seventh, as

it crushed Arizona 35-7 last Satur-

day and faces a Colorado team

ranked 106th in team defense this

weekend. However, the Utes have

less to gain from a Pac-12 crown be-

cause it will come from beating a

BYLAINEHIGGINS

KYUSUNG GONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

poms, the fluffy props also used by

cheerleaders. “The new NFL cheer-

leaders, they don’t use poms,” he

said. “But [my coach] was open to

the idea of me using poms, so I do

use them.”

Dana Kanstulisn’t a University

of Southern California student, but

she’s more visible than most of

them. The 36-year-old is the first

woman to appear at USC football

games astride the white horse

known as Traveler.

The first time she rode into Los

Angeles Memorial Coliseum, she

was greeted with a deafening roar.

“It’s an experience not like anything

you can imagine,” said Kanstul, a

horse trainer in Burbank, Calif. “You

can’t prepare for it.”

She said women especially are

happy to see her in the rider role—

“older women, specifically.”

As USC’s first female drum major

in the more than century-long his-

tory of the marching band,India

Andersonwears or carries around

about 20 pounds of Trojan soldier-

inspired gear including a brass hel-

met, breastplate and backplate and

an aluminum sword.

“I don’t think people understand

that the tip is actually sharp,” she

said. “In all our rallies, people al-

ways like to scoot in front of the

band, and it’s like, ‘C’mon.’ I’ve al-

most sliced people too many times.”

Anderson, a junior from Penning-

ton, N.J., and tuba performance ma-

jor, emerged last spring from the

monthslong drum major training-

and-tryout process to win a vote of

the more than 250 musicians in

USC’s band. She said being the first

female drum major at the school

wasn’t a driving factor.

“I just wanted to go after that

position and be of service to the

band whether I was a woman or a

man or whatever,” Anderson said. “I

really think that the position should

not be a gendered one. It should de-

pend on the qualities of the per-

son.”

Only rarely heckled, Anderson

said that fans have been over-

whelmingly supportive: “Even at

Notre Dame, they were coming up

and saying, ‘That’s so cool you have

your first female drum major.’ ”

India Anderson is the

University of Southern

California marching band’s

first female drum major.

by Notre Dame coaching legend Lou

Holtz and has greeted wide-eyed

boys and girls at Fighting Irish

women’s soccer games.

On a Notre Dame football game-

day a woman recognized Wukie

even in her street clothes. “She said,

‘I just wanted to thank you, because

I live with my husband and three

boys.’ I just thought that was really

special, that I had an impact.”

Army’s West Point Band launched

in 1817—half a century before the

Civil War—and last year,Nicole

Caluoribecame its first female

drum major. She’s one of three drum

majors who share duties leading the

band, which performs at halftime of

football games, in parades and at

other functions.

Unlike the spirit band, which

features West Point ca-

dets, the Army West

Point Band members

are active-duty sol-

diers who receive

salaries. When

Caluori isn’t lead-

ing the band she

plays French

horn in it. Re-

cently, she was

selected for pro-

motion to Sgt.

First Class.

Caluori is 34 years old

with three children—her hus-

band also plays French horn in

the band—and last spring left

the students at her now-8-year-

old daughter’s school speech-

less when she spoke there.

“The whole school was in

awe when I came out in the

full dress uniform,” which in-

cludes a feather-topped hat

called a tarbucket and a glis-

tening saber, Caluori said.

“All the teachers were ask-

ing if I could come back at

the end of the day, so they

could be quiet.”

At each football game,

Kelly Bertoniis an-

nounced to the fans at

Michigan Stadium as

the marching band’s

“woman up front.” She

is Michigan’s third fe-

male drum major,

Utah’slosstoUSCin

September could cost

the Utes a playoff spot.