Editor’s note: The 50th anniversary of the Northwestern University Dance Marathon, which over the last half century has raised a total of $23 million for more than 30 charities, is set for Friday and Saturday at Welsh-Ryan Arena. In this guest essay, two of NUDM’s founders describe how it came about.
In the winter of 1974, when the brothers at the Alpha Tau Omega chapter at Northwestern were approached about sponsoring a dance marathon at NU, our response was an enthusiastic, “Yeah, let’s do it!”
Little did we realize the innumerable challenges we’d be faced with. For starters, no one raised his hand to take the lead. But as seniors, we knew we were in the best position to manage the event. So along with another brother, Bill Buell, we volunteered.
Then there were the questions, such as where to host the event, how to manage publicity and the best way to recruit dancers. What about entertainment, prizes, security?
And we drastically underestimated the time it would take to pull it all together.
In short, we knew nothing about everything!
Getting started
Basically all we knew was that you needed incentives to encourage people to participate and draw attention to the event. This took two paths: live entertainment and really cool prizes.
Buell knew about entertainment. With his connections, he was able to line up some of the biggest local bands to perform. Donald Altschuler was able to motivate some of the ATO brothers to approach local merchants for prizes. One that we scored was a pool table.
Armed with these incentives, we set out to publicize the event. This included getting the Carlsberg Beer van to circle the campus with loudspeaker announcements, probably against campus regulations. We got radio promos donated and all-campus flyers circulated and updated as new prizes and entertainment were secured, such as Frank Sinatra Jr. The WSDM all-female rock station and their DJs agreed to publicize and appear at the event. So did WBBM radio and TV personalities.
Voila, we had a program.
Now all we needed were dancers!
We scoured the dorms, the sororities and other fraternities for participants. We plastered the campus with flyers.
In the end, we had more than two dozen teams, attracted by the challenge, entertainment, prizes and sheer uniqueness of it all. We got the recently opened Blomquist gym as our venue. We secured both Northwestern and Evanston security. We even got Edgar Vanneman, the city’s mayor, to proclaim “Dance To Give Them A Chance Day” in Evanston.
But we also needed to keep our fraternity brothers excited. After all, it had been a months-long slog, with multiple starts and stops along the way.
We hosted a dinner at the fraternity, attended by many of the personalities who had agreed to take part. It was (no pun intended) a rush.
‘Let the marathon begin!’
Finally the weekend arrived. Doors opened. Curious undergrads poked their heads into the gym. With the adrenaline flowing, W.D. Sangerford, Chicago’s most popular DJ at the time, announced, “Let the Marathon begin!”
The bands began to play, the dancers began to dance. For every $1,000 raised, Altschuler agreed to swallow a goldfish. (Today he would be arrested.) And after some 50-plus hours and nine goldfish, the first NUDM event had raised close to $10,000.
The Dance Marathon is very different today. There are DJs rather than live music. Fifty hours of dancing was reduced to 30. This year for the first time it’s down to 15 to encourage more participation.
What remains the same is the passion, student participation, community support and the need for a few people to take the lead and make it happen.
Aftermath
If someone had suggested back in ’74 that we were putting in motion an event that would bring the Northwestern community together as never before, that NUDM would become the longest continuous charitable Dance Marathon in the country, that it would raise millions of dollars for charities and after 50 years would remain the university’s signature event, we would have said, ”Nah, no way.”
But in fact, there’s been a way, thanks to countless volunteers and the fabulous energy and spirit shown by the dancers themselves.
Roy Elvove’s son Zachary, who attended NU from 2012 to 2016, participated in four DMs, becoming part of the 120 club, participating all four years and dancing 30 hours per year. You can imagine a father’s pride when Roy was able to join Zach 10 years ago for DM No. 40. It’s the stuff of fairy tales. Altschuler’s goldfish-swallowing photo has become a part of university folklore. And all of the ATO brothers enjoy that shared moment of pride, which they have since passed down to their kids and grandkids.
From those of us fortunate enough to have been there at the beginning, thanks to everyone who has helped keep the dream alive.
Here’s to another 50 years.
Donations for Dance Marathon 2024, which will benefit the Ronald McDonald House and Evanston Community Foundation, can be made online at go.nudm.org.