In Memory of Dr. C

Stonehouse wrote:I was just thinking... it would be a nice tribute if they kicked off next season's opening game with a ceremony remembering him and inducting him to the Hall of Fame. I think that would be a very fitting tribute to a man who was truly an institution at UP basketball games for a very long time.

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - The University of Portland community is mourning this week the loss of one of its most colorful and endearing figures, music professor, band director, and trumpeter Philip Cansler, who passed away Monday at the age of 54 after being diagnosed with brain cancer last fall.

A memorial service for Cansler has been scheduled for Sunday, June 15th at 4;00 PM. It will be held at First Baptist Church, on 909 S.W. 11th. The service will be followed by a reception there.

It is anticipated that there will also be a memorial service for Cansler on campus in the fall after the students and faculty return.

Dr. Cansler came to the University in 1980, and over the years became a popular professor and mentor to hundreds of students enrolled in his Concert Band class, and fundamentals of music and introduction to fine arts courses.

The composer of the University fight song, "University of Portland Victory March," and a regular trumpet performer in his church and the community, he was affectionately known on campus as "Dr. C." Off campus, he performed locally in choirs and enjoyed playing in a band at the annual Pendleton Round-Up rodeo.

Eventually, he became a favorite at basketball games, directing the pep band, wearing a purple wig, dancing and prancing with his trumpet in hand.

"My first nine years, I was a typical pep band director," Dr. Cansler was quoted in a 1999 feature in The Oregonian newspaper. "I'd go to meetings with other band directors and they would always be complaining that the worst job they had was directing the pep band. I decided life was too short to do anything I didn't enjoy."

Dr. Cansler moved west after graduating in 1976 with a bachelor's degree in music from Washburn University of Topeka, Kansas. He earned a master's degree and doctorate in music, both from the University of Oregon. His area of expertise at the University of Oregon was in trumpet performance and music history.

Phillip Cansler's first job as a paid musician came while he was attending Washburn University in 1974 and answered a call for auditions for two summer pit orchestras at the Worlds Of Fun Amusement Park in Kansas City. He got the job, beating out more than 40 others and worked four shows a day, starting at 10:00 AM and learned the value of Carmex lip ointment to ease the pain of sore lips.

"That summer, hot as it was and sore as my lips were, gave me the confidence to try to be a professional musician," he wrote in 1998 in a memoir in the University's Portland Magazine, "and I am that rare trumpeter who can say that he began his career in an amusement park."

Dr. Cansler carried that spirit and enthusiasm with him throughout his career, earning praise from former students and co-workers, and, of course, throughout his years with the University's 30-member pep band.

"In their course evaluations, students consistently praised Dr. Cansler's enthusiasm in the classroom," said Michael Connolly, chair of the department of performing and fine arts.

The purple wig and purple suit that Dr. Cansler wore were only a few of his props at basketball games. He would wear a white glove while the band played a Michael Jackson tune or a straw hat for a Beach Boys song. At other times, he wore an Indiana Jones hat, a big top hat or a Mohawk haircut wig.

"I thought the band members would feel my energy," he told The Oregonian. "I thought if I had a good time and the kids sensed it, the band would play better and have a good time too." He added that the band's music could also help spur on the basketball team.

"Sometime's when it's a close game," Dr. Cansler noted, "I'll say, ‘Band, it's up to us.'"

Survivors include his wife, Annette, two step-children, a brother, Joel, and a sister, Myra.

PILOTS' PEP BAND PROVIDES LOONEY TUNES
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR) - January 26, 1999
Author: KEN WHEELER of the Oregonian Staff

Summary: Band director Philip Cansler and his charges create a wild and zany atmosphere at University of Portland basketball games
There he comes, running from the north end of the arena looking like he just extracted his hand from a light socket. He pulls up at midcourt, hoists that trumpet to his lips and the "William Tell Overture'' floods the Chiles Center as the Portland Pilots stream onto the court.

"It-t-t-t-t-s-t's Dr. C!,'' the public address announcer blares as the prancing, dancing, purple-clad ringmaster who will share the evening with the basketball team barrels into his mission.

"My first nine years, I was a typical pep band director," Philip Cansler says. "I'd go to meetings with other band directors and they would always be complaining that the worst job they had was directing the pep band. I decided life was too short to do anything I didn't enjoy."

And a metamorphosis took place. Because of Cansler , the 30-piece Portland pep band, which shares the stage with the basketball team, is a show unto itself, what with Cansler jumping and gyrating and making a fool of himself just like he had scored a touchdown in an NFL game.

"I think he does a great job," said Portland coach Rob Chavez, seemingly not at all concerned about sharing the stage. "He's got a lot of charisma. He's got a lot of energy, and does a great job of keeping the band and the crowd enthused. He and his band are a positive part of our game."

Cansler didn't really figure it would be this way, not back when he and his wife Jeannine loaded everything they had into a U-Haul trailer, hitched it to the back of their 1965 Ford Fairlane in Kansas City, Mo., and headed for graduate school at the University of Oregon.

They figured they would return to Kansas City some day, but their folks weren't so sure they would ever see the kids again. Oregon? That place on the edge of the map? Probably either be lost in the wilderness or drive that Fairlane right off the edge of the earth. But they made it and they stayed.

"Until you get here," Cansler says, "you can't believe the beauty of the place."

The Canslers got their advanced degrees and ended up with the Pilots on The Bluff. It's been 19 years now and the music -- and the show -- keep rolling on.

"I thought the band members would feel my energy," Cansler says of his dancing bear role. "I thought if I had a good time and the kids sensed it, the band would play better and have a good time, too. The basketball games are to entertain the crowd. The band and I are entertainment, too. We play great music and we entertain the crowd."

Cansler did not arrive with the act intact.

"About three years ago," he says of the purple suit, "the athletic department had that suit made for me. They came to me and said, 'If we make it, will you wear it?' I said, 'Sure.' "

Turned out to be only a beginning. Professor Jill Hoddick, a fellow instructor in the performing and fine arts department, contributed the wig with strands of something that looks something like Christmas tree icicles. Purple, of course.

"Looked in the bag and it looked something like a pompom and it laid around here for about three months," Cansler says. "Then I took it out, wore it to a game and started shaking my head. The kids seemed to enjoy it."

That's just one of the props. There's the Indiana Jones hat, the white glove he puts on when the band plays a Michael Jackson song, the white straw hat for a Beach Boys tune. And then there is the big top hat. Purple, of course, and the Mohawk haircut wig.

He's particularly fond of the purple trumpet that Russ Schmidt of Beaverton Musical Services, a UP alumnus, found for him, and the percussion siren that's mounted in a three-foot trombone bell that Paul Barnett, a friend from church, put together. And then there's the gizmo he straps on his head that makes it look as though he has a trumpet running through his head, half of it coming out of each ear.

No question about it being entertainment, but Cansler sees it as a mission, too.

"Sometimes when it's a close game," he says, "I'll say, 'Band, it's up to us.' "

Then there will be a timeout and the band bursts into action. Maybe it will be the "University of Portland Victory March,'' with music composed by Cansler and words by the late Thomas Oddo, president of the university who was killed in an automobile accident.

Or maybe "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah'' or "Louie Louie,'' a couple of Cansler 's favorites. While the band plays, Cansler might be line dancing. Or pivoting on one hand while break dancing.

"Normally," he says, "I lose two pounds each game."

It's no one-man show, Cansler insists.

"Without a great band, I'm nothing," he says. "Those 30 members of the pep band are incredible," and he rushes into a recitation of names, people such as trumpet players Alex Richardson and Nathan Patla, saxophone players Alisha Yarish and Diane Dunham and trombone players Rob Melrose and Adam Ritenour.

And there is Davis Monroe, another UP graduate, who teaches at a junior high school in Forest Grove but comes back to campus to be Cansler 's assistant with the pep band. He's the man with the baton while Cansler is out there running around like his hair was on fire.

Band members, while not required to play while standing on their heads, appreciate what's going on.

"When the leader is the most enthusiastic person out there, you really enjoy playing with him," Yarish said. "He's always coming up with creative things."

Creative, like that high-stepping, high-fiving circumnavigation of the court. Probably only the lack of an accomplice precludes a belly-bumping finale as is in vogue among athletes today.

"He shows that he loves what he is doing," Melrose said, "and we enjoy it. Specially the fact that we're not the ones out there making fools of ourselves."