The Orange Girl’s task seems simple: entertain. But past and present performers say the role comes with a set of challenges.

‘There’s a lot of intrinsic motivation,’ said Ashley Andrew, the current Orange Girl and a junior communication sciences and disorders major. ‘I’m really just pushing me, myself.’

The Orange Girl doesn’t have a coach. No one tells her the moves. In a section in the marching band, there are several members playingbackup roles. She flies solo.

When the Orange Girl first became a university tradition, she wasn’t even called the Orange Girl, just ‘a girl.’ And she was the only girl.

In 1947, Howard Kelly, assistant director of the Syracuse University Bands, brought something new to the all-men marching band: a woman. For 15 years since the position started at the university, the twirler was the only woman in the band.

The group adopted the name ‘100 Men and a Girl,’ and Jessie Ann (Harp) Griffing, the first baton twirler, took the field on horseback during an SU and Niagara football game.

The ‘Girl’ in the marching band became a national symbol. Dottie Grover, one of the first twirlers for the school, graced the covers of Look and Calling All Girls magazines, according to her memoirs. She, along with the band and the football team, performed on the first-ever televised bowl game — the Orange Bowl of 1953. In 1962, Judy Delp, the twirler at the time, claimed the title of ‘Orange Girl.’

‘Nationally, we uphold this really high caliber of twirling and technique,’ Andrew said.

The position of the Orange Girl is one of independence and self-discipline, but Andrew started out as a student at nationally known baton troupe Red Star Twirlers. The New Hampshire studio has turned out five of SU’s 22 baton twirlers. And many the Red Star Twirlers graduates found their way on the campus through their SU peers.

Melissa Gaffney, 2009 SU alumna, taught the current Orange Girl when she was just 7 years old. Since age 3, twirling has always been a part of Gaffney’s life.

She entered a recreational twirling program when she lived in Woburn, Mass., and joined the Gangi Bay State Strutters baton twirling team. But it wasn’t enough. Three days a week, her family made the one-hour drive to East Derry, N.H., just so Gaffney could twirl with the Red Star Twirlers.

‘I always found more things to try,’ she said. ‘It’s a competition with yourself: Can I do this? Can I master this? Can I take it to the next level?’

For eight years, Gaffney traveled six hours a week to be a Red Star Twirler. She eventually made a big leap to the SU campus as the Orange Girl from 2004 to 2009.

She quickly realized a public performance has tricks besides the ones in the Orange Girl’s set routine. Sometimes rowdy opposing fans spit insults at Gaffney. Batons fall through fingers and hit the turf. The baton twirler has to pick it up and keep going, all while smiling.

In her second year of graduate school, Gaffney helped Andrew, a freshman at the time, ease into the twirling position.

Working with nearly 200 student instrumentalists is an advantage and a hindrance. Since the beginning, the twirler worked with the band. By looking at charts and drills set by section leaders, Andrew, Gaffney and the girls before them had to literally fit between the moving band members.

‘It’s easy sometimes because the drills really are designed to have a twirler in there. But the next moment, I have people coming in at me from all sides,’ Andrew said.

But Gaffney and Andrew said the connections they’ve made with band members and fans outweigh the cons.

The Pinstripe Bowl, the first bowl game SU played since 2004, is Andrew’s favorite memory as the Orange Girl.

‘We had a basic performance, but there was this roar that erupted from Yankee Stadium that I hadn’t heard before,’ she said. ‘So many people cheered when they saw us, the band. I had the biggest smile on my face.’

Athletics, the backdrop for an Orange Girl’s performance, constantly changes at SU, Gaffney said. Citing the conference change from the Big East to the ACC, she said it’s nice to hold a position with a 70-year-old consistency.

‘A lot of things can’t be called tradition,’ she said. ‘And it’s incredible that I’ve been a part of something that’s stayed the same.’

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Published on November 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm