Self-published in Dec. 2020

The flood was coming, and Steve Leuder could feel it. 

He looked behind and saw the waves eager to swallow him whole. Leuder called above, raising his concern to the powers that be. They assured him that it was time to pack up his equipment, two-by-two, and head for safety. 

On the twenty-third day of the eleventh month in the year 2019, all the springs of the great Inferno burst forth, and the floodgates were opened. Thousands of Arizona State University students poured onto the field at Sun Devil Stadium. Their home team had just knocked off the Oregon Ducks, and Steve Leuder, better known as DJ Slippe, was positioned in front of the student section, playing “Turn Down for What” by DJ Snake and Lil Jon. 

Leuder was soundtracking what could have been his own demise, if not for the choice to abandon his post. He saw the warning signs of a field-rushing written on the face of the police officers forming a dam in front of him. DJ Slippe escaped the field with seconds to spare. 

“I called up to the booth and was like, ‘Hey, things are getting hairy down here,” Leuder said. “‘Is it cool if I pack up?”

Thousands came to pay worship to the Sun Devils that day, and Leuder played the role of hymnmaster. He’s been the DJ for ASU athletics for three years, works as one of five disc jockeys for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and has been in the DJ business for nearly 20 years.

Musical contribution to the game day experience is essential at ballparks, arenas, and stadiums. While fans are invested in the numerical score of the game, it is the DJ, organist, or marching band that provides the atmospheric score. 

The antediluvian tie between sports and music has existed for nearly as long as the former’s lifespan, as it is said that music was played in the ancient Greek olympiad. Mark Cartwright of the Ancient History Encyclopedia wrote in a 2013 article, “Athletics and other sporting activities, another major element of the Greek education, were also done accompanied to music, particularly in order to increase synchronization.” 

The foundation of music and sport’s perpetual connection was built in Greece, but their relationship wasn’t ubiquitous until the middle of the 20th century. 

By the 1940s, baseball parks across the United States began installing organs and, consequently, hiring organists to keep fans entertained during the inevitable rallentandos of a long baseball game. The role of an organist was the antidote for complacency for multiple decades. 

In 1970, an upbeat musician without any sports experience accepted a role at Comiskey Park, the home of the Chicago White Sox, forever reshaping the alliance between music and sports.  

“When I started, there was no audio,” said Nancy Faust, the organist of 41 years for the Chicago White Sox. “The only other audio was from the PA guy. He did the talking and I did the playing. The ballpark was my stage and they let me go.”

Faust quickly became a fan favorite because of her ability to adapt to games on the fly and connect her songs to the players or events unfolding on the diamond. In fact, Faust pioneered the tradition of walk-up songs that has since been baked into baseball doctrine. 

The idea started when former White Sox general manager Stu Holcomb recommended that Faust play a song relating to each player’s homestate. It gave Faust plenty of flexibility, but it was merely a starting point for the logical paths she eventually maneuvered to connect jocks and jams.  

“Nowadays, [the players] select the song and everybody is in tune to which song each player likes,” she said, “It wasn’t like that then. I selected the songs based on a name, number, or physical trait.”

Five decades later, Faust finds salvation in remembering her improvised connections. 

“There’s just so many ways to associate a name with a song,” she said. 

A player named Greg might hear the “Brady Bunch” jingle before stepping to the plate, an homage to the eldest son of America’s television family. 

After being acquired by the White Sox in 1972, Dick “Richie” Allen was embodied by John Williams’ “If I Were a Rich Man,” from the “Fiddler on the Roof” soundtrack. That was the case until Faust understood that the thirty-year-old future AL MVP was emerging into a higher echelon of stardom. 

“[He] was just such a…superstar. I realized that the fans went crazy when he came up to bat,” said Faust, “I think this was the first time I actually played commentary.”

She cued up “Superstar” from the 1970 musical “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

Her most impressive association gymnastics routine came when Faust was presented with Brandon Inge, a third baseman who came to visit during his time with the Tigers. One of the fans notified Faust of a playwright named William Inge, who had a play called “Bus Stop.”

Sure enough, Nancy Faust learned the tune of “Bus Stop” by The Hollies. 

It was the intellectual tithing of fans that led the organist to The Hollies, and it was also what kept her motivated. Faust, who earned a psychology degree from North Park University before taking on a position at the ballpark, said it was the people that kept her around in the business and not the sport itself. 

“I was more into the psychology of being happy with people than I was into being happy with a winning team,” she said. “I made sure when people left the stadium, I was playing toe-tapping music. Win or lose, it was a great party.”

When she first began playing as an organist for the White Sox, Faust was positioned among the fans, and she credits them for accelerating her learning curve as someone who wasn’t raised a baseball devotee. She befriended the season ticket holders that were regulars in her section and even spent time with them in the offseason

“We became family,” she said with a nostalgic laugh, “In the winter, we would get together at a restaurant and take over a whole wing.”

At some point in the 1980s, Faust began noticing a transition in her profession. While teenagers across the country were wearing headsets attached to Walkmans, Nancy Faust was putting on her first headset as an organist. It became imperative that she communicated with those in charge of the scoreboard as the desire to stimulate fans only grew. On the screen, there were advertisements, trivia questions, video replays, you name it. Faust had to adjust to a new pace of entertainment, and the technology initially dwindled her creative freedom.

“I did resent it at first,” said Faust, “When you’re told to play ‘Charge’ and you don’t feel there’s anything to play ‘Charge’ about, it kind of ruins the rhythm of the game.” 

Soon, she learned to adapt, albeit rather reluctantly. 

“I became used to it and almost reliant on it,” said Faust, “I didn’t have to concentrate as much on the game because I was just there waiting for a command.”

There is a romantic irony within technological advancement. In many ways, it has presented an alternative to the traditional organ, but it’s also brought the performer closer with the most devout members of their congregation.

Marty Burns, a self-proclaimed White Sox fan and former Sports Illustrated writer, remembers showing up to the game hours before the first pitch and hearing Faust’s tones echo through the empty Comiskey Park. 

“I still, to this day, I hear [her] songs in my head,” said Burns, “When I think about being a kid and going to the games, it’s still there. I can still remember some of the songs she used to play.”

This type of praise isn’t foreign to Faust, whose son recently inspired her to create a Twitter account and share videos of her craft. 

“I’m getting a lot of feedback from old people that say, ‘When I was 13, or 15, this is the sound that I associate with that great time in my life,’” she said. 

Because of the growing relationship between fan and organist on social media, Faust has no fear for the future of her profession.

Boston Red Sox organist Josh Kantor, a protégé of Faust’s, has used social media to cope with the absence of work due to the pandemic. Kantor started a daily livestream on social media where he interviews prominent figures, talks about life and, of course, plays a few songs on his organ. 

“I really believe that since I’ve retired, organists have a little more prominence than they once did,” said Faust. “Because of social media, they’re able to market themselves and communicate with fans. I think organists are going to be around for awhile.”

Thirty years after Faust first donned a headset, Steve Leuder is taking his orders from the gameday producers at the Arizona Diamondbacks. He is perched beside an audio engineer inside the press box chancel, separated by architecture from the fans in attendance.

“In my scope of things, [the producer or director] is the only person I care about pleasing,” he said. “They know what the higher-ups want for the team and they’re hearing feedback from the fans and players.”

While DJs rose to prominence later chronologically than organists, the two professions experienced similar technological evolution.

Easier access to music via online streaming services has expanded the job pool, but ultimately it takes more than a good playlist to be an effective entertainer.

“I think that it’s a lot easier these days to be a DJ but a lot harder to stand out as a good DJ,” said Leuder. “It’s night and day if you got somebody that eats and breathes music. And I’m constantly trying to find new stuff. I’ll hear something on the radio and go ‘Oh, I can use that!’”

It’s the devotion to music that has kept Leuder engaged for so long. DJ Slippe originally began spinning records twenty years ago in clubs and house parties. Today, he says he gets to DJ in front of “literally the craziest party you’ve ever been to” – a college football student section.

“Sometimes I’ll be rocking and I’ll turn around and look at the bottom of the student section,” Leuder said. “There’s thousands of people screaming, fistpumping, and trying to get on the jumbotron. That feeling is crazy. That’s a drug, man.”

While DJ Slippe is positioned on the South end of the stadium, the Sun Devil Marching Band, or the ‘Pride of the Southwest’ as they’re referred to by ASU’s public address announcer Chuck Drago, can be found congregating to the North.

The sound of a marching band is as symbiotic with the college sports experience as the sound of an organ is with baseball. The nostalgia of fight songs, snare drums, and halftime choreography conjures sentimentality in the most avid of college football fans. The music played by the Sun Devil Marching Band goes beyond “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Carmina Burana.” Today, it’s Panic! At the Disco and Led Zeppelin, too. 

Gina Sleeper, one of three drum majors for the Sun Devil Marching Band, said that the band has over thirty different songs prepared for football games, and another seventy for basketball games. 

“There’s something for everyone at a football game,” said Shawn Schive, another drum major in the band. “Some people are there for football, some people are there for the atmosphere or to get a hot dog, and I wholeheartedly believe some people are there to hear us play.”

The band practices three to four times per week, attends a band camp under the torrid Arizona sun each August, and shows up to Sun Devil Stadium over five hours before kickoff. The work is difficult and time-consuming, but ultimately worth it.

Schive said, “Maybe it’s the crowd, maybe it’s because thousands are watching, but it doesn’t feel like work when you’re running out of the tunnel.”

Whether it’s via an organ, a collective marching band or a turntable, faith in music is at the core of any performing musician on gameday. 

“It’s a community, man,” said Leuder. “Some people go to church; some people go to shows.”

Leuder is anxiously awaiting the day that he is able to get back on his musical altar and deliver a bass-boosted sermon to the disciples of sport once again. He longs to see the expressions of his audience. 

“It’s that look on someone’s face after they went to work or school all week,” Leuder said. “In that moment, I’m able to make them forget about all that. For any DJ, it’s part of our identities. It’s what feeds our soul.”