Plains Folk

NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

February 11, 1999

Plains Folk: An Account of the Unaccountably Absent Cowbell

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

Principal Don Warren of Oakes High School rang up Principal Matt Herman of Ellendale High School and said, "We have a little situation here. We cannot find the cowbell." And this was the week of the 53rd Annual Cowbell GameOakes Tornadoes vs. Ellendale Cardinals in boys' basketballone of the great high school rivalries on the northern plains.

The deal with the cowbell started back in 1946. There were these girls from Ellendale who brought a noisy cowbell to every game, which proved an irritant to opposing fans. Ellendale was to play Oakes in Lisbon for the district championship. The night of the game the girls were eating in a restaurant in Lisbon when some boys from Oakes filched the bell. Ellendale won the district, and the Oakes boys agreed to give back the bell the next week at Edgeley, where Ellendale was playing in the regional. In the meantime they painted it: one side orange with "OHS" in black letters, the other side black with "EHS" in red letters. Jim Seifert of Oakes also drew up a set of laws and by-laws establishing the "Cowbell Tradition." Coaches and captains from each town signed this document.

The final clause of Article I provided, "That this tradition shall not be terminate until the world and its inhabitants have been reduced to dust."

The deal was simple: The first meeting of the two teams each season was to be designated the Cowbell Game, with the winner gaining possession of the cowbell for the year. The cowbell became a traveling trophy.

So it went for 52 years. Ellendale dominated the early (often low-scoring) years in the series, but going into this season, Oakes had won 11 of the last 13 contests. The overall count was Oakes 28, Ellendale 24. The barnburner of the series was on Jan. 4, 1991. Coming in, each team had won 22 games. Ellendale won in double overtime, 60 to 57.

About three weeks before this season's game, Principal Warren noticed that the cowbell, kept in the Oakes High School trophy case since the Tornado victory of Feb. 3, 1998, was missing. He was calm. He figured the kids were just emulating the tradition between NDSU and UND involving the Nickel Trophy, which provides for ritual thievery with the trophy always turning up again at the game.

The Cowbell Game this year was in Ellendale, played in the Trinity Bible College gym. A thousand or more people packed into a typical northern plains gymrainbows of steel girders, padding on the concave ceiling to soak up sound and about 18 inches of stopping space at end of court before a fast-breaking player hits the concrete-block wall.

Ellendale was ranked and favored and clearly had the better athletes, but they took bad shots and played flat. Oakes was both inspired and focused and led (with the help of a 3-point buzzer-beater) by 10 at half. Good Class B ballno man taller than 6 feet 3 inches on the court, man-to-man defense both ways, well-schooled teams.

Late in the third quarter the Ellendale coach took a time-out and made some pointed remarks about the basicsblock out, run the pattern, take the ball inside and use your strength. The Cardinals crept back, took a slim lead, made the free throws and won the victory 67 to 59.

The Oakes team, cheerleaders and fans cleared out. The home fans stayed around, milled about the court, and started and stopped a series of chants, "We want the cowbell! Give us our bell!" There were a couple of personal incidents down in the throng.

Finally a spokesperson for Oakes got on the public address system and apologizedthe cowbell had been stolen, and he was sorry. So everybody walked out through the starry slush to their cars, started up and drove home.

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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339

Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136