Brown University Band

The Brown University Band performing a halftime show.
School	Brown University
Location	Providence, RI
Conference	Ivy League
Founded	1924 (1924)
Website	students.brown.edu/band/

The Brown University Band is the official band of Brown University. Like all Ivy League bands except Cornell's, it is a scatter band. The Brown Band began performing on ice skates in 1970, and claims to be the world's only ice skating scatter band. It is the source of much of Brown's school spirit, and often appears as a public representation of Brown to the Providence community and to other universities. The Band is present at Brown's football, hockey, and basketball games, in addition to Commencement and many other events each year. It receives funding from Brown's Undergraduate Finance Board.

The Band was founded in 1924 by Irving Harris, a freshman who was shocked to find that the University had no band. This established a tradition of a student-run organization that currently has University practice space and a faculty advisor (currently Matt McGarrell), but is primarily driven by its student leadership.

The Band creates between 700 and 1000 buttons for each football game. These buttons have short messages that make fun of the opposing team, usually through wordplay and stereotyping the opposing school. Brown Band members proudly display these buttons on their uniforms, often making large patterns out of them. Buttons are handed out to every fan who goes near the Band. During the third quarter, several bandies will walk over to the opposing team's stands and hand out buttons. Other bands are typically the first recipients of buttons during this time, and many band members at other Ivy League schools wear Brown Band buttons on their uniforms.

Elrod T. Snidley is the Brown Band's mascot. He is always depicted carrying a bugle and leaning on a bass drum. Elrod was created in 1968 as a self-portrait of Band President C. Douglas Ballon, '69. In those days, Ballon's cross-eyed likeness of himself was affectionately referred to as "Doogi". Renamed "Elrod" by Ballon's successors, his likeness adorns almost every object that the Brown Band wears or sells, including their uniforms, pens, and kazoos. Bandies often form intramural teams for various sports, and always sign up under the team name "Snidleys."