Big Bertha is a

bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...

used by the

Longhorn Band The University of Texas Longhorn Band (LHB), also known as the Showband of the Southwest, is the marching band of The University of Texas at Austin. The Longhorn Band was founded in 1900 by distinguished professor of chemistry, Dr. Eugene P. Sch ...

of The University of Texas at Austin. The Big Bertha name was chosen to evoke the famous German Big Bertha howitzer and has been used for two Texas bass drums, with the second debuting in 2022. Both Big Berthas have laid claim to being the largest bass drum in the world, with the second currently holding the title. Big Bertha is wheeled onto the field for the pre-game show during varsity

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

games, and is used in other occasions such as

parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually ce ...

s – including the

London's New Year's Day Parade The London New Year's Day Parade (LNYDP) is an annual parade through the streets of the West End of London on 1 January. The parade first took place in 1987, as the Lord Mayor of Westminster's Big Parade. The parade was renamed in 1994, and for ...

accompanied by the Longhorn Alumni Band – and spirit rallies. The drum is managed by the Bertha Crew, sometimes called "drum wranglers", who move the drum and play it after

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s, and it is nicknamed the "Sweetheart of the Longhorn Band".

The original Big Bertha

Description

The university claimed the original Big Bertha to be the world's largest drum; it measures in diameter, in depth, stands tall when on its four-wheeled cart and weighs more than .

History

In 1922, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

commissioned C.G. Conn Instruments to build a bass drum for the school. Its first use was in the 1922 game versus rival

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. When the University of Chicago ended its varsity football program in 1939, the drum was stored under the school's

bleachers Bleachers (North American English), or stands, are raised, tiered rows of benches found at sports fields and other spectator events. Stairways provide access to the horizontal rows of seats, often with every other step gaining access to a row ...

. It later allegedly became radioactively contaminated as a result of research for the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

conducted at the stadium during the 1940s, though it passed a Geiger test before it was returned to Conn. In 1954, Colonel D. Harold Byrd, a long-time benefactor of the Longhorn Band, suggested that the drum be purchased from the University of Chicago and given a new home at Texas. Mr. Moton Crockett Jr, former student and Director of the Longhorn Band, purchased Bertha for $1.00 from Conn and transported the drum from Elkhart, Indiana, to Austin, Texas, using his own truck and trailer. Mr. Crockett refurbished the drum during the spring and summer of 1955, and presented it to incoming Director of the Longhorn Band, Vincent R. DiNino. Mr. Crockett established an endowment for the care of Bertha. In 1961, the University of Texas and

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

chapters of Kappa Kappa Psi pledged to bring their respective drums to a showdown to decide the title of "World's Largest Drum" at the fraternal national convention in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

; however, as only the Purdue branch of the fraternity showed up, with the Purdue Big Bass Drum, UTA lost its self-claimed title to own the "World's Largest Drum". As of 2018, The Guinness Book of World Records lists a Korean drum as the largest. In March 1980 a Kappa Kappa Psi pledge class hand-scraped years' of toxic

lead paint Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead. As pigment, lead(II) chromate (, "chrome yellow"), lead(II,IV) oxide, (, "red lead"), and lead(II) carbonate (, "white lead") are the most common forms.. Lead is added to paint to acceler ...

from the body of the drum and the drum's trailer, returning the finish to a high luster. The six pledges' names are inscribed on the inner wall of the drum and can only be seen when the drum heads are removed. In 2005, the university celebrated the 50th anniversary of Big Bertha. In 2015, Big Bertha appeared in Season 17, Episode 13 of A&E's ''

Shipping Wars ''Shipping Wars'' is a reality television series that aired on A&E from January 10, 2012 to April 29, 2015. Season 9 premiered on November 30, 2021 with a new cast of shippers. The show follows various independent shippers who have discovered tha ...

'' as part of its journey to appear in

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

Big Bertha II

On October 15, 2022, during halftime of Texas' game against Iowa State in its 100th year of service, the original Big Bertha made its final appearance before entering the school's Frank Denius Family Athletics Hall of Fame, but its successor, Big Bertha II, was also unveiled as it was wheeled to the center of the field at

Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium (formerly War Memorial Stadium, Memorial Stadium, and Texas Memorial Stadium), located in Austin, Texas, on the campus of the University of Texas, has been home to the Longhorns football team since 1924. The sta ...

alongside the original. Made by Austin-based A&F Drum Co., Big Bertha II is the largest bass drum in the world, measuring just over 9.5 feet in diameter and 55 inches in depth in comparison to the Purdue Big Bass Drum at 7 feet and 5 inches in diameter and 41 inches in depth (confirmed in 2013 by Hayleigh Colombo of the ''

Indianapolis Star Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

'' using microfilm stored at the Tippecanoe County Public Library in Lafayette, Indiana) and the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

's Big Mo measuring 9 feet in diameter and 54 inches in depth. It was manufactured with a proprietary material with aluminum, is wired with an internal mic system that will allow it to wirelessly connect to the stadium sound system and plays the lowest note ever played on a bass drum.

References

External links