Tradition

Harold Hill and Howard Green

Harold and Howard jointly composed many songs, several of which are still sung today, "Oskee-Wow-Wow," "Hail to the Orange," and "Cheer Illini," at University of Illinois functions, and "Violet" and "Hail to the Purple" at Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity houses on campuses across the country.

Howard Green believed that "College songs are in a class by themselves." As he wrote years later, "Many of them live on and on because of sentiment rather than any particular musical merit." He believed that most of them were rather difficult to sing for the average man. "I mean the man who can carry a tune and wants to sing in the worst way (and often does), but who is limited by nature to a one-octave range." It was to this end that the two young men wrote their songs, sometimes using the melodies of older songs and adding the lyrics written by Howard. They even tried writing an "opera" but lost interest before it was finished.

After receiving $100 for "Oskee-Wow-Wow," they failed in their attempt to sell "Hail to the Orange." The SAE quartet did introduce it to the University of Illinois Glee Club and it was performed by the Glee Club at the first "Homecoming" football game ever held in the country. It became a regular part of the Glee Club repertoire but it was not until 1927, when Howard re-turned to Illinois for "Homecoming," that he realized his song had been published. It was in 1966, however, at the halftime of the Illinois-Stanford Football game, that Howard R. Green, a man who truly loved the game, was to get his greatest reward for the part he had played in writing "Hail to the Orange." He was introduced to the crowd of 55,000 fans who proceeded to sing his song. In Howard's own words, which he acknowledged borrowing from Winston Churchill, "This was my finest hour!"

This text is taken from "The History of Harold R. Green Company and Its Founder" by Margi Burtin, published by Howard R. Green Company, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Available online at http://www.hrgreen.com/publicationspress/pdf/thegreenbook.pdf.

The Three in One

Just as with the Marching Illini, the Basketball Band plays the incomparable Three in One during the half. The Three in One consists of three traditional school songs which are The March of the Illini, The Pride of the Illini, and Hail to the Orange.