Sophomore Harpoons Sky To Capture Bag of Laughs

Like moneylenders in the temple or hippies at the Pentagon, a baton twirler in the band is a total mind-loop. But whatever your reality, Donald W. Tuckwiller Jr. '70 is doing the Mr. America thing at Harvard.

The Mr. America is only one of several routines Tuckwiller--an Engineering and Applied Physics major--performs for the football fans each week. A drum major in the Charleston, W. Va., High School Band, he answered the call when his school needed a twirler to compete in a regional festival.

Practicing religiously with 25 boys and 300 girls at a twirling camp in Syracuse, Indiana, Tuckwiller worked up the polish and "cocksure, sly, smily" attitude needed to win the contest and eventually to convince the Harvard Band it needed him.

Stripped of the yard-tall rabbit-fur hat and German military uniform he wore in high school, unable to use fire batons in daylight, and handicapped by the cold winds of Boston, Tuckwiller cannot put on a precision Big Ten show here. But he practices about eight hours a week, working out routines that will entertain rather than dazzle the audience.

"In high school they boo when you drop it," Tuckwiller said, "but here they laugh." His best trick is a high throw and somersault combination he thought up as he went to sleep the night before a game.

He said he is rarely nervous before a game. "There was a lot of psychological pressure in the Princeton game, though," he added. The show was televised, and Tuckwiller's friends at the University of West Virginia saw him perform in stop-action.

Generally impervious to jeers, he says that townies call him a sissy but few Harvard students make pejorative comments. He described the time he was practicing outside Dillon Field House before the Lafayette game. A bunch of football players razzed him for awhile, he said, but then one asked how long it had taken him to learn twirling and finally they all applauded.