Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the solitary trumpeter plays again.
He stands and roars life into his gleaming horn, a familiar, rousing tune that heralds an enduring love for his alma mater and its football team. Wearing a jacket in his school maroon, contrasted by his white hair, he cuts a regal air.
At 74, Ted Bick, a retired professor, a retired marathoner and a retired basketball player, still plays a mean fight song. If he's not the greatest fan the Union College Dutchmen have ever had, then it doesn't sound and smell like fall Saturday afternoons at Frank Bailey Field.
He brings his old trumpet in a faded, ash-colored wood case and tucks it under his usual seat near the 50-yard line in the shadow of the press box. As kickoff looms, he takes it out and rests it across his lap like a pet.
His wife, Joan, at his side, Bick is a kind of pride piper for a klatch of 20 or so other Union alumni, all seasoned by age and willing participants in a time-tested musical touchdown ritual.
With each Dutchmen touchdown on their home field, Bick and his friends rise to their feet. Bick plays “It's Union's Game.” The others join in. They've been doing it for 25 years, or thereabouts.
“We've traveled down the Mohawk vale,
We've gathered every Union son …”
Little chance Bick will be mistaken for Doc Severinsen.
“I'm not a great player and I have a limited repertoire,” says Bick, who also plays a pretty good rendition of the alma mater after the games and a few hymns at church on Sunday. “But there is no evidence that the singers sing any better than I play.”
“He's gotten a lot better,” says Dr. Don Bentrovato, a Schenectady urologist from the class of 1969 and a chorus member in good standing who sits a row behind Bick. “When he first started, his playing was pretty miserable.”
That's how it goes on game days.
“There's a certain amount of good-natured joshing, at least I hope it's good-natured,” Bick says. “We laugh a lot and people who are not part of our group join in, and I think everyone gets a kick out of it. We're not afraid to stand up and be counted when it comes to Union.”
Hail to her name
Ring Union's fame
Cheer on her team
It's Union's game
Union has scored 14 touchdowns at home this season and Bick trumpeted all but one of them. The rare miss came on Oct. 8 when a raw, miserable rainy day took its toll on both trumpet and player and Bick left the premises before Union's final touchdown in a 31-3 rout of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
“It was raining like crazy and was so cold the valves on the horn got stuck,” Bick says. “By then my fingers were frozen and were too cold to manipulate. I'm not very good anyway, so if you add things like valves not working, it gets pretty sad.”
He also plays the song for any home-game field goal longer than 40 yards, but says he can't recall the last time that feat was accomplished at a home game.
And then there's his discretionary tooting.
“I toot it for first downs, just one note,” Bick says. “Same for a great defensive play.”
Bick's trumpet tradition complements a lifelong love of sports. He played varsity basketball at Union in the mid-1950s and kept up his devotion to athletics and conditioning throughout his teaching and retirement years.
Before his left knee gave out, he ran 80 miles a week and was a regular among area entrants in the Boston Marathon. He still works out with his wife at a fitness center four times a week and plays some alumni basketball, a game he counts as his favorite.
Union head football coach John Audino remembers Bick's weekly visit to the football office when he was an assistant coach in 1983.
Every Thursday the articulate math professor who taught there for 32 years would drop by the coaches' office with some calculated advice.
“He would give us his play of the week,” Audino says. “We'd get him up at the chalkboard and he'd draw up a play and he'd say 'You know, I've been thinking about what you guys should do …' and I'll tell you we put in a few of his plays over the years.
“I can't tell you how much support he's given us. He's just been tremendous for our kids and the school.”
From near and far they've come this way,
To see today a victory won”
Bick says his group may be the last of a breed, and that they may be no more than a source of curiosity for today's students.
“We haven't exactly overwhelmed the undergraduate student body,” he says. “They probably look at us like we're nuts, but we were crazy long before they were born.”
“I didn't know his name, but I'm aware of him, we all are,” says senior center Tim Cannon, a team captain. “I noticed that guy blowing that trumpet every time we score since my freshman year. It's something special because it shows people really care. They are there in the rain and the snow and when we would be 5-5 and not score our first touchdown until we were behind 33-7, and still he plays the trumpet.
“I feel like they might be a different generation, but if they were all like that back in the day, man, that's something special.”
Bick doesn't discount the possibility some future trumpeters could still be out there, waiting their turn.
“I think in every class there probably is a small contingent of people who really give a hoot about the school and will get up on their feet and be identified,” he says.
Bick, his trumpet and his group will be decked out in their Union best again today when their beloved Dutchmen host Troy's RPI Engineers, an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III football championship tournament at stake.
“I hope I have to play it about seven times,” he says. “That would be just about right.”
Hail to her name
Ring Union's fame
Cheer on her team
It's Union's game