Approximately half an hour before the kickoff against Minnesota, an odd sea of students ran out onto the field at Camp Randall.
With canes in hand and bowler hats jauntily tipped to the side, hundreds of third-year law students rushed out from the north end zone and ran, trotted, jogged and moseyed toward the opposite end of the field. Once there, they paused and tossed their canes over the goal post and attempted, in spectacular fashion, to catch them. There was much riding on this pre-kickoff homecoming ritual—there was dignity on the line, familial pride and the outcome of their first case.
""I don't have anything preplanned for the toss,"" Sina Javaherian, a third-year law student, said at a pre-toss tailgate at the Law School. ""It's going to be a game-time decision. That's the way it has to be—it has to come from the soul, it has to be organic.""
This student-centered tradition has been in place at the UW-Madison Law School since the early 1930s. Although its origins are unclear, rumors trace it back to the arrival of professor William Herbert Page from the Ohio State University Law School, and every homecoming since, third-year students have taken one day off to celebrate the near completion of their degree and to take a chance at predicting the success of their first case. If they catch the cane, they win. If they drop it, well, the consequences can be brutal.
""There's a lot of job offers riding on this,"" Bryan Steil joked to his friends before the game. He was facing more pressure than most of the students. In place of the light, modern-era Law School-provided canes he was sporting a genuine 1951 antique. Heavier than most canes, it was his grandfather's—a UW Law School graduate himself and a cane toss cane-catcher.
""He can't be the first one in the patriarchal line to miss,"" Tom Agnello, a fellow third-year law student and the lone student sporting the top half of a three-piece suit, said, laughing. ""If he does, well, then he'll be disowned.""
The key to catching the canes, according to most of the students, was in the flick of the wrist and a predetermined throwing style. Outside the law school students practiced the tomahawk chop, the javelin toss, a few disastrous underhanded tosses and their approach—fast jog versus pole jump tactic versus brisk trot.
""I've decided that I'm going to tomahawk chuck it, sprint and then make a diving catch,"" Agnello said. As he as his friends perfected their wrist-flicking technique and argued over which throw would result in an easier catch—they decided on a combination of javelin toss and tomahawk chop—students, parents and alums mingled in shades of red and gray and sipped mimosas and bloody marys.
Today was the one day, another student said, that the undergraduates actually recognized the law school students—if only they would fill the stands early enough to see it. The run across the field fired up what fans were already in the stands, and arguably laid the legal foundation for the Badger's decimation of the Gophers.
On the field, most students were fortunate enough to catch their canes. Agnello's, however, hit the goal post crossbar and bounced back into the end zone and darkly foreshadowed his legal career. Yet, he said, this was a minor technicality. He already won his first case when participating in the Unemployment Compensation Appeals Clinic as a first-year law student, so his ""personal cane toss debacle shouldn't have any deleterious ramifications"" for his career, he said.
