How 'Jump Around' became a tradition before the fourth quarter at Wisconsin's Camp Randall Stadium

Meg Jones
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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  • House of Pain's "Jump Around" was first played at a Wisconsin Badgers football game against Purdue at Camp Randall Stadium in 1998
  • The song was an immediate hit with fans (and players) and continued to be played through the rest of the season
  • It has since become a tradition for fans and players to jump around to the song before the fourth quarter begins

Homecoming. Oct. 10, 1998. Night game at Camp Randall Stadium.

A Drew Brees-led Purdue team is driving toward the end zone when the quarter ends and the teams switch direction.

As the Boilermakers prepare to move the football toward the north end zone and the University of Wisconsin-Madison student section, the wailing of trumpets playing three F sharps followed by a B note blares from the loudspeakers.

And suddenly the student section looks like red and white kernels of popcorn popping during an earthquake.

University of Wisconsin has made 'Jump Around' its own

Twenty-three years later, the Pavlovian response is the same when House of Pain's "Jump Around" is played at Camp Randall before the start of every fourth quarter.

Most in the stadium probably don't know the words or think it sounds like "blah, blah, blah ... Jump around! Jump around! Jump! Jump! Jump!" But it doesn't really matter what's said, the rhythm is infectious and now, in a way, UW owns "Jump Around."

"Jump Around" is featured on T-shirts, sweatshirts and onesies for future Badgers sold at the University Bookstore. Badger fans, if they wish, can channel the queen and get a T-shirt that says "Keep Calm and Jump Around." And in recent years, it's played to jumping graduates at commencement each May.

How "Jump Around" became a thing and not just a one-off at UW football games, is partly obvious — it's a great song to rev up a crowd heading into the final quarter — and partly perplexing. Why this song? How did it become a tradition?

It all started as just another song to energize fans with the ulterior motive of trying to make it difficult for Purdue to move the ball, said Kevin Kluender, UW assistant athletic director for marketing and promotions.

Students jump up and down to the song "Jump Around" at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.

"I was in the press box that night. The students were jumping, it looked like popcorn to me," recalled Kluender. "It was pretty neat. Fortunately, Wisconsin went on to win that game."

The Badgers defeated Purdue, 31-24, on their way to an 11-1 season and a Rose Bowl victory over UCLA.

The players noticed.

Defensive lineman Erik Waisanen was on the field that night. "It was just crazy. We looked over and saw the student section. It was unreal — it was more than goosebumps. It was more than a confidence builder and I really wish I could come up with a better way to describe it."

The House of Pain song became a hit in 1992 and was added to Camp Randall's playlist six years later

The song became a hit in 1992, reaching No. 3 on the U.S. charts when House of Pain sampled the opening horn fanfare from Bob & Earl's 1963 tune "Harlem Shuffle" followed by a repetitive high-pitched squealing.

There are several origin stories of how "Jump Around" ended up on Camp Randall's playlist. The one Kluender remembers is of a UW athletics marketing department intern named Ryan Sondrup, a tight end for the Badgers who got injured and could no longer play. Sondrup was tasked with coming up with a list of popular songs to be played during lulls in play.

Sondrup was Waisanen's roommate and Waisanen was a bartender at popular campus hangout Wando's Bar & Grill. He remembers Sondrup showing up at Wando's all excited.

"He was like 'I got my first assignment, let's pick some songs on the jukebox.’ ”

Waisanen was a junior that year after being recruited out of Fond du Lac Goodrich High School. He got some coins from the cash register.

"That's how old I am — you still had to put money into a jukebox to play a song," said Waisenen, 42, who lives in the Milwaukee area. "I would love to say the whole bar started combusting when 'Jump Around' was played but they didn't. There was a change of energy, though, so we figured — let's put that one on the list."

After that homecoming game, the UW marketing department played "Jump Around" at the following game and the reaction from the student section was the same. The song was played the rest of the ’98 season.

"But then we didn't know. The season ends. Was that just a moment in time?" said Kluender. "We tried it at the start of the ’99 season. They continued to participate and the tradition started."

Wisconsin's teammates were in a good mood in the fourth quarter to dance to "Jump Around" as the Badgers led by 48 points over the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles at Camp Randall Stadium on Sept. 7, 2013.

That one time 'Jump Around' wasn't performed at a Badgers football game

It hasn't been an unbroken string. In 2003 while the stadium was undergoing extensive renovations that included adding luxury suites, the campus administration told Kluender not to play the song at the home opener. They worried that 80,000 jumping fans might knock something loose.

Fans were, to put it mildly, unhappy.

If that happened now, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram would light up. But back then letters were mailed and phone calls made.

At the home opener, once students realized they wouldn't get to "Jump Around," they booed, raised fingers, turned their backs to the field and generally pouted.

"It felt like for a couple of minutes they refused to cheer and participate," Kluender said. "They were definitely upset."

The university hired an engineer to verify the stadium wouldn't crumble if "Jump Around" was played and order was restored in time for the following game.

Lead rapper Everlast performed with the Wisconsin marching band during the 2011 Rose Bowl

Though members of House of Pain and producer DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill have never appeared at Camp Randall, lead rapper Everlast performed the song with the Badgers marching band in Los Angeles during the 2011 Rose Bowl, said Kluender.

Waisanen thinks "Jump Around" resonated with students in 1998 because it was a six-year-old song that they listened to in junior high and high school. Then it caught on and became a tradition.

Waisanen goes to two or three Badger football games each year and now takes his wife, Sydney, and 6-year-old twin daughters, Blake and Raegan. He jumps around and goes crazy at the start of the fourth quarter and loves watching his daughters do the same.

"That's what makes it so special. It wasn't started by five football players or Kevin (Kluender) in the booth pushing a button. It was started by 70,000 people," said Waisanen.

RELATED: Menomonee Falls teen goes viral for being the sad Michigan fan in a sea of Wisconsin students during 'Jump Around'

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