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Notre Dame Marching Band

Senior Molly Kinder became the first woman member of the kilted Irish Guard when she passed an audition with the band in the Loftus Center two nights before the start of fall semester. She was the only woman among 28 students who tried out for six openings in the 10-member group. Results were posted the morning after the auditions.

" "I looked at [the list] a million times," she says. "I was really excited."

Kinder, who auditioned unsuccessfully the year before, is perhaps the only woman on campus who could have tried out for the Guard without it conflicting with a commitment to a varsity sport. Guard members must stand at least 6–2, and she’s 6-3.

She played on a state champion basketball team her senior year at Holy Angels Academy in Buffalo, New York, and was a member of the rowing team her first year and a half at Notre Dame but has competed only in intramurals since.

The auditions followed a grueling four days when candidates marched with the band, did push-ups, learned marching routines, and had to prove their ability to stand stony-faced at attention while others tried to make them laugh. Last year the tryouts lasted five days, and many of the males dropped out before the audition, she says. She stuck it out to the end.

"Last year I wasn’t going in necessarily trying to make it. It was more of a personal thing to see if it I could make it to last day of tryouts," she says. "This year I had the attitude that I wanted to make it.

"I felt my audition went really well, but there were a lot of really good guys trying out this year. I just hoped I was one of the six best."

Kinder says she doesn’t think her presence will conflict with any of the traditions of the group. She also says she was treated well by her male rivals at both tryouts and has received nothing but encouragement from students as well as alumni, parents and professors.

Given her height and the bulky Guard uniform, which is topped by a black bearskin shako that extends guard members’ height to at least eight feet, it’s not clear whether uninformed observers will even realize that the gender barrier has been breached.

A government and peace studies major, Kinder spent this past summer in Chile conducting research on how globalization affects the gap between rich and poor. While there she lived with a poor family and volunteered at a Holy Cross orphanage.

According to the marching band’s website, the Irish Guard was formed in 1949 by then-Director H. Lee Hope in an effort to add color to the band.

Senior Molly Kinder

Photo by Matt Cashore

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