Who Knew?

by Eileen Gilligan

Q. Who are those crazy students who dash across the football field at the Homecoming football game and throw sticks at the goalposts?

A. Law students, obviously. (OK, maybe it’s not obvious.) But each year at the Homecoming football game, third-year law students undertake this traditional run, which they believe forecasts the results of their first official cases as lawyers.

The goal is for students to toss canes over the goalpost and catch them on the other side. Legend holds that those who catch successfully will win their first cases; those who catch the wrong cane will have to settle.

Meghan McCormick, treasurer of the Student Bar Association, says she knows of no studies to determine whether those who drop their canes really do lose their first cases.

Perhaps with a nod to a future working relationship, the plain, black canes this year were ordered from a medical supply company, the cheapest source. “A lot of times people decorate them in different ways so they can recognize their canes so they get a ‘win’ rather than a settlement in their first case,” McCormick notes.

Despite some top legal research, the origin of the cane toss remains murky. Many believe it dates to the arrival of professor William Herbert Page from Ohio State University Law School in the 1930s.

Keep an eye out for this event during the game Saturday, Oct. 16, and wish the future jurists luck – unless you plan to be on the opposing side of the courtroom for a new graduate’s first case.

Q. Where did the Bucky Wagon come from?

A. The Bucky firehouse, of course. Or would you believe Wisconsin Rapids?

The Bucky Wagon, which carries Bucky and the cheerleading squad onto the football field before games, actually is the third in a line of Bucky wagons. Originally, the wagon was used to transport shells for the crew team from lake to lake. Then the wagon’s cargo expanded to include the football team. The tradition dates to the turn of the century when fans pulled the football team in a “Little Red Wagon” to and from the train station for out-of-state games.

At one point the wagon was an antediluvian Ford chassis with a wooden framework. An old fire truck followed, until the current restored truck, a 1932 La France fire engine, was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Jay J. Normington of Wisconsin Rapids in the mid-1970s.

Now the team travels by bus or airplane, and the Bucky Wagon is reserved for taking Bucky and his contingent onto the field at Camp Randall stadium.

Send your question to Who Knew? c/o Wisconsin Week, 19 Bascom Hall; or e-mail: wisweek@news.wisc.edu.