University of Wisconsin marching band members didn’t have a care in the world when they flew to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Texas, Dec. 26. They had a great show planned, the football team had nothing to lose and adrenaline was running high. Little did they know, an enemy was lying in wait for them.

“It showed up in a couple of people on the second day we were there,” said drum major Dan Henkel. “It was like a 36-hour bug. It emptied out your system. A lot of people were even dry heaving.”

“It was some type of flu-like virus,” said band director Mike Lorenz. “There were signs that said the Norwalk virus was present in Texas.”

Lorenz said sickness was not unheard of during band trips. “It always happens in one or two spots. What was uncommon about this was the number, the sheer numbers.”

Ashley Davis, a saxophone player, said, “I wasn’t worried about it at first, but it was almost like something out of a movie.”

“We had three practices before the game,” Davis continued. “By the third practice, we had to stop everything and put alternates in.”

“Oh man, I’ve never been to a practice like that,” Henkel said. “In, like, 30 spots people were having to have alternates. Those guys learned their spots the day before the show.”

Davis agreed, saying, “People just went in and did it.”

Despite this, though, Lorenz said the show was a success.

“The show was great, phenomenal,” he said.

Henkel agreed, saying, “The halftime show was never better. The adrenaline running through everyone was amazing.”

Yet, the worse was yet to come. The Badger band was about to have a rather unfortunate sixth quarter.

“We marched from the Alamo Bowl back to the hotel,” Davis recounted. “And people were getting sick on the walk there.”

Despite a customary celebration after a big win, Davis said most band members stayed away from each other.

“It was pretty down. People were worried about getting sick. I didn’t sleep in my room; thank God, because my roommates all got sick that night,” he said.

Sick as the band was, however, Lorenz said only one student was hospitalized.

“One student went to the hospital for dehydration and muscle problems,” said Lorenz. “No one else went to the hospital.”

Things went from bad to worse the next day.

“We were supposed to load the buses the next day,” Henkel said. “But we were delayed for two hours. I think they were seeing who was alright to travel.”

Lorenz disagreed and explained, “It was a matter of the airline delaying us. That always happens on every trip.”

Davis remembered, “They sent one of the buses to get Gatorade, stomach medicine and garbage bags.”

When the band finally boarded the plane, the extent of the contamination was evident. “There were a bunch of kids getting sick on the plane,” Lorenz said. “It got kind of messy; we ran out of garbage bags.”

“Stewardesses were passing out garbage bags on the plane,” Henkel said. “They told us to use the bathroom on the right if we were sick, the one on the left if you were healthy.”

Davis explained how the sick were separated from the healthy during the flight.

Davis said, “The healthy people went toward the front. The sick people went toward the back of the plane. I didn’t go back there at all, but you could hear people getting sick.”

“I was one of the few that made it through,” said Henkel with obvious pride. “Thank God for a strong immune system.”

Lorenz sent an email to band members to determine exactly how many were affected by the virus. Approximate estimates ranged from 40 percent to 60 percent.

“No one’s really upset,” Lorenz said. “Everyone just feels like it’s too bad it had to happen. Other than that, the trip was great.”