CHICAGO - For better or worse, nobody has had a better seat for Badgers games than Mike Leckrone.

The venerable leader of the Wisconsin band took the job in 1969; when the football team was 16 years removed from its last Rose Bowl appearance and the basketball team was - to put it charitably - underachieving.

As the Wisconsin athletic program has improved in the past 15 years, so has Leckrone's passion. Up until the football team returned to the Rose Bowl in 1993, Leckrone's pinnacle events were five NCAA Hockey Championships.

Things are much different now.

As Leckrone surveyed the large contingent of Badger fans at the United Center, he remembered the early days of his tenure; when the few who showed up to Camp Randall Stadium or the UW Fieldhouse were often said to be attending a band concert with sports as an undercard.

"It was a pretty pricey ticket," Leckrone said prior to Wisconsin's 78-64 loss to UNLV in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. "We've come a long way."

Leckrone recalls the dark early days, when Don Morton's veer offense was having little success and a group Leckrone calls the "faithful 5,000" was on hand. Many of the more renowned game-day traditions - like the Fifth Quarter performances following football games - were born out of that gloomy era.

When he first came on the job, there was no varsity band to play at basketball games. He started from scratch, and built not only a band, but a brand that is as well-respected as the school's teams.

That, Leckrone says, wasn't by accident. Former athletic director Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch wanted a group that would be an integral part of the athletics experience.

"He felt that the band was just as important as any of the teams," Leckrone said. "He treated us equally, and the coaches do, as well."

Picking a favorite experience isn't easy for Leckrone, but he knows what springs to mind first. It was the day that then-coach and current athletic director Barry Alvarez put Wisconsin back on the map.

"No question, that first Rose Bowl," Leckrone said. "After all those years and there we were, doing the Fifth Quarter in front of all of our fans in [the Rose Bowl] stadium."

Since that day, when Wisconsin rose to prominence, Leckrone has been fortunate enough to see two more Rose Bowl and Big Ten Conference Championships, travel to 12 bowl games, a pair of Big Ten basketball championships, 11 NCAA Tournaments, a Final Four in 2000, and last year's sweep of the men's and women's hockey national titles.

With excitement like that, Leckrone doesn't even see retirement on the horizon.

"I actually thought more about retirement years ago," he said. "Things are just too much fun now."