Singers seek chance to open home games
Published Oct. 3, 2003
Four teenagers entered the Hearnes Center at dusk and crept down to courtside seats where other fans are already sitting.
"It looks a lot bigger down here than I'm used to seeing," said Hickman High School senior Kyle Stegall as he pointed to the upper decks.
Stegall, along with high school senior Eran Feintuch, junior Jared Smith and junior Joel Schilb were not at the Hearnes Center to see how the Tigers would fare without basketball guard Ricky Clemons. As members of the Hickman Men's Quartet, they were vying for a chance sing the national anthem at a Tiger basketball game.
On Thursday, the athletic department held auditions for people wishing to sing the anthem at home men's and women's basketball games.
"They come in and fill out an info sheet, and we'll call out names when it's their turn to sing," said Emily Hawkins, spokeswoman for the MU athletic marketing and promotions office. "Some people who can't make the auditions sent in tapes, and we'll listen to those as well."
Four judges scored each singer or group on scale of one to 10, with 10 being the best score possible.
There are 32 home basketball games this season, at which selected performers will be assigned to sing following the auditions.
"We just decided that we've gotten far enough in our singing and that we should audition for an MU game," Smith said. "We've been singing this version for a while now. We're nervous, but we know this song pretty well."
Dressed in casual clothes for their performance, the guys discussed their upcoming high school musical, "Meet Me In St. Louis," Kewpies football and the chances of the Chicago Cubs making it to the fall classic this year.
At 7:25 p.m., one of the judges explained how the auditions would run before they began, and after 12 other acts, the quartet finally was called to center court.
They all raised their hands and went to center-court to stand around a single microphone. Making sure they could see each other's faces, they began to sing. As they harmonized their way through their three-octave arrangement, whispers of "oh, wow" rippled through the audience. When finished, they received standing ovations from about half the crowd and made their way back to the sideline.
"It went very well," Schilb said following the performance. "We sounded how we wanted to sound. It was a great experience to sing in such a big room. It changes the sound, and we have to listen to each other more carefully."
Stegall said they would not make any predictions about the outcome of the audition.
"It was good to come out here with an arrangement that's different than the norm," Stegall said.
Whether they get to sing the national anthem at an actual game is yet to be determined, but the group said they had fun singing at the Hearnes Center for the audition.
"It was a frickin' blast!" Stegall said.