University of Alabama Million Dollar Band to march in Tournament of Roses Parade

It's deep in the rich Crimson Tide history, almost a century's worth, and at least partly inspiring the fight song, so Alabama knows roses.

But Jan. 1, 2024 will count the first time the University of Alabama's Million Dollar Band has marched in the Tournament of Roses Parade, at least as far as the Paul W. Bryant Museum and Ken Ozello, director of the Million Dollar Band, can ascertain, though of course the football champs have played numerous Rose Bowls, dating back to 1926.

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"Certainly from the '70s on, they were not in the parade or I think I would have heard about that," Ozello said. "This may be the first."

The 135th Tournament of Roses Parade will start rolling at 8 a.m. Pacific Time, which will be 10 a.m. Central, Jan. 1 and is being broadcast on ABC and NBC, among others. Later that day, the Alabama football team will face Michigan at 4 p.m. Central in the Rose Bowl in the semi-final of the College Football Playoff.

Brad Green of the Bryant Museum said for earlier Rose Bowls that Bama played in — 1926, '27, '31, '35, '38, and '46 ― high school bands were chosen to march. And select high school bands still march, as do smaller colleges with teams who won't be competing in the bowl.

Alabama groups that have played the 1890-born Rose Parade:

• 2006: Alabama A&M Marching Band

• 2009: Homewood High School Patriot Marching Band

• 2011: Albertville High School Aggie Band

• 2014: Homewood High School Patriot Marching Band

• 2018: Albertville High School Aggie Band

• 2019: Alabama State University Mighty Marching Hornets, from Montgomery.

And Jan. 1, the Albertville High School Aggie Band will return, the same day the 400-member Million Dollar Band makes its debut.

"It's another great experience for our students," said Ozello, the Million Dollar Band's director since 2002. "One of the missions of our organizations is to supplement their collegiate experience, and certainly the Rose Parade counts."

One of the nation's most famed, the Rose Parade predates by 34 years the 1924-born Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which the Million Dollar Band played, another first, escorting Santa Claus in 2021.

The Rose Bowl itself is an offshoot of the parade, rather than vice-versa.

Former Easterners and Midwesterners who'd moved to Pasadena wanted to show off the California weather, where flowers bloomed even in winter. Charles Frederick Holder, a naturalist, preservationist and writer, helped urge the celebration into existence.

“In New York, people are buried in snow,” Holder said, at a meeting of the Valley Hunt Club, which sponsored the earliest events. “Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”

The earliest parades included horse-drawn, floral-bedecked carriages, leading up to a Pasadena town lot, renamed Tournament Park in 1900. Football wasn't yet involved, but games and demonstrations were held, including ostrich races, tug-of-war, polo matches, bronco busting, and a foot race between a camel and elephant. As a good omen for the Crimson Tide, the elephant won. Marching bands and motorized floats came later, until the expanding event required creation of the Tournament of Roses Association.

A 1902 Tournament East-West football game is considered to be the first Rose Bowl, though it wasn't played again until New Year's Day 1916. The game has been played annually ever since, with the exception of some World War II years, and in 2021 for the COVID-19 pandemic the game was played in Arlington, Texas.

The game's name derived from the Rose Bowl Stadium, constructed in 1922 for the 1923 event, at the time the country's largest.

UA's 10-0 1925 gridiron team earned prominence playing the Rose Bowl, which had become a de facto national championship game, beating Washington 20-19 on Jan. 1, 1926. Alabama was just beginning its rise to legendary status; the SEC wasn't even founded until 1932.

Several pollsters named the Crimson Tide national champs after that Rose Bowl victory. Riding crimson fervor, UA's Rammer Jammer publication offered a $50 prize, equivalent to about $877.29 today, for composition of a new fight song. The Crimson White's editor, Ethelred "Epp" Sykes, wrote the winning lyrics and music, donating his prize money to creation of a full Million Dollar Band arrangement.

The key "Yea Alabama" words: "Fight on, fight on, fight on men!/Remember the Rose Bowl, we’ll win then."

And Alabama did win then, largely, traveling to Pasadena regularly over the next decades, until a drought after 1946:

• 1926: Alabama beat Washington 20-19

• 1927: Alabama tied Stanford 7-7

• 1931: Alabama beat Washington State 24-0

• 1935: Alabama beat Stanford 29-13

• 1938: Alabama lost to No. 2 California 13-0

• 1946: Alabama beat USC 34-14

Then there's a gap until the Rose Bowl became the site of championship and playoff games. In 2010, Bama beat Texas for the national championship, though that happened Jan. 7, not the traditional New Year's Day (Or Jan. 2, when the first of the year falls on a Sunday), in the Rose Bowl Stadium. And Jan. 1, 2021, Bama crushed Notre Dame 31-14, with the Rose Bowl serving as college football playoffs semi-final but the game was played in Arlington, Texas.

The Rose Parade draws an estimated 700,000 people along the 5.5-mile route, with another 70 million watching when it was broadcast on national TV in 2012. For this year's Rose Parade, illustrious Broadway, film and TV star Audra McDonald will be grand marshal. The theme is "Celebrating a World of Music: The Universal Language."

The Million Dollar Band hasn't enjoyed a lot of prep time, as school let out about the time word came from the Tournament of Roses Association.

"As a very long parade, it's challenging, because we're not in school, not keeping our cardio up," Ozzello said. The Macy's parade ran about 2.5 miles, but took three hours, including a performance just for TV. The Macy's is more than twice as long, at 5.5 miles, but marches at a faster pace, usually clocking in about two hours.

In parades, the Million Dollar Band alternates between "Yea Alabama," the 1950's Steve Sample arrangement, and its bold version of stomping Fleetwood Mac hit "Tusk," adopted not just because of UA's pachyderm mascot, and the near-shorthand for Tuscaloosa, but because a marching band played on the original recording.

"But you don't really stop in the Rose Parade," Ozzello said. "The official word is 5.5 (miles), but I think there's some length to get to the start."

Without students directly under their wings, the UA School of Music has been sending regular reminders to performers to get out and walk.

"Some of our staff even provided training programs, some walking programs," Ozzello said, "though the actual walking isn't the issue. It's the weight (of the instruments)."

Percussionists probably have it worst, he said especially those playing the tenor drums, with a four-drum array spread out like a table, and all the weight carried in front, roughly 30 pounds.

The Million Dollar Band flies out Dec. 30, on its own charters, separate from the team.

For more on the Rose Bowl and Rose Parade, see www.tournamentofroses.com.

Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Making history? Million Dollar Band will march in Rose Bowl parade