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In 1987 or thereabouts, UW suddenly--after years of perfectly successful unsupervised crowd cheering--decided it needed official cheer-leaders. The new cheerleading team had uniforms and songs and choreography... all the conventional paraphernalia of any ordinary university squad. It was all very peppy, very preppy, very administration-approved. To a couple of UW alumni, Linda Carson and Paul McKone, it just didn't seem very "UW."
"We were sitting in the Grad Club," Carson says, "Having a refreshing lemonade--as I recall--and bemoaning the dreadful conformity of the whole notion of cheerleaders. It just didn't seem to represent the true spirit of the University of Waterloo.
"Paul said something flip about how the true UW spirit would be represented by a bunch of people in suits throwing briefcases about.
"It sounded like a great stunt," Carson continues. "I'd done a lot of goofy choreography for FASS over the years. I got a few people together and we started working on weird stuff you could do with a briefcase. Paul was a member of the Warriors Band so he arranged to have them play for us. Steve Hayman came up with a musical arrangement and everybody got to work.
"The team rehearsed on the pavement outside the Math building. We had a rotten little tape deck and an atrocious recording of the Warriors Band. The team--all six of them--never heard the Band play live until they actually performed the number."
The UW Varsity Briefcase Drill Team made its debut, unannounced and unauthorized, at halftime at a basketball game, November 1987, in the PAC. Nobody knew they were coming but the Warriors Band. They marched onto the court in suits and sneakers, and performed their signature piece: Nine to Five.
"The crowd had never seen anything like it, but from the moment those six people entered that huge gym in formation, everybody got it. I think that's still the greatest thing about it. UW knew right away what the team represented: ourselves," Carson remembers today. "I'm very proud of that moment, when the University of Waterloo proved it can laugh at itself."
The crowd went wild.
The team was asked back to perform at the Naismith tournament. Then the team was invited to perform for an alumni event, a reunion of distance education students, and all three openings of the new Davis Centre. They played Frosh Week and on-campus conferences. The team even did the Santa Claus parade!
One delighted viewer immortalized the team with this accolade: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen!"
Yes, it was, and UW couldn't get enough. The team kept getting together "one more time." It was supposed to be a one-shot stunt, but it kept going, and going...
The team was mainly made up of students and a few hardy staff folk: Angela Chambers, Ken Jones, Chris Kitowski, Suzanne V. Langdon, Peter Houston, Dave Till, Steve Hayman, John Sellens, Heidi Leblanc, Brian Dickson, Peter Coo and Peter Carette (another guy whose face Linda remembers... another Dave, maybe?). Apparently the drill team performed at the wedding of Steve Hayman. Guest artists included one-timers Patricia Clarke, Joanne Mathon and Cheryl Fitzsimmons. Inevitably the team faded discreetly away as most of its performers graduated and left town. They left behind some photos, a few videotapes, and retired briefcase so battered the team nicknamed it "Shrapnel."
About a decade later, Linda Carson got a call from UW. The fortieth anniversary was coming up. Could she remember any of that old choreography?
The new and improved University of Waterloo Varsity Briefcase Drill Team will proudly debut at the following fortieth anniversary celebrations: Faculty, Staff, Retiree Birthday Party on Tuesday, June 3; `Business After 40' event on Tuesday, October 14, and the Naismith Basketball Tournament on Saturday, November 8!
Last Updated on October 31, 1997 by Kyle McKenzie (kkjmcken@mc1adm.uwaterloo.ca)