many claim that the first audience wave originated in husky stadium on halloween 1981, at the prompting of husky band trumpeter dave hunter. contrary to hunter's account, former washington yell leader robb weller has also claimed credit for the first wave. weller was the guest yell-king during the huskies' homecoming football game against stanford. his initial concept for the wave was for it to travel vertically, from the bottom of the stands to the top, within the husky student section. when the stunt was met with limited interest, he then decided to reverse the movement of the wave to travel from top to bottom. this failed miserably, as it was necessary to turn backward to see the wave progressing downward. weller then gave up and returned his attention to the game. however, a fan named omar parker sitting on the open (east) end of the stadium at the student side started yelling "sideways". weller did not hear him, but then many students tried to initiate a "sideways" wave on their own. after a few attempts, and more yelling of "sideways" by students, weller took notice. he instructed the crowd to stand as he ran past. he moved along the track toward the open end of the stadium, explaining to the student crowd what he would do, then ran along the track toward the closed end of the stadium, in front of the student section. the stunt caught on after a couple of tries and continued around the entire stadium, and was then repeated throughout the rest of the game and the season. longtime uw band director bill bissell also claimed co-creator credit with weller, suggesting that the wave was devised by both of them prior to the game. the following week bill scott (known as "bill the beer man") started the wave in husky stadium and also at the seattle seahawks game in the kingdome.