Either Leckrone gets the band to stop the senseless, repulsive hazing of younger members, or UW officials replace Lekrone with somone who can.

It's that simple.

Leckrone has done some great things for UW-Madison during nearly four decades of running the band. He's a creative talent who gets the best from his young musicians when they're performing at athletic events and in concert.

But under Leckrone's leadership, the band also has exhibited its worst when out of the spotlight, riding on long bus trips and partying hard between performances.

Leckrone acknowledges as much. He recently characterized his band's bad behavior as "asinine, disgusting and degrading."

Young band members have quit, citing harassment such as sleep deprivation, forced heavy drinking and sexual-related humiliation.

Leckrone has pledged to take the band in a "new direction." He said the band's culture of hazing "needs to change now, and it needs to change permanently."

He is right about that.

And top UW-Madison administrators need to make sure that happens. If the hazing doesn't stop, Leckrone should be fired.

The band already embarrassed itself, its university and its state in 2006 when a rash of hazing incidents came to light. Now the same problems have flared again, forcing a one-game suspension last month for the entire band.

Most band members are ambitious, responsible young people earning college degrees and representing their university well. The ringleaders behind the bad behavior appear to be a small number of upperclassmen.

Yet the entire 315-member band has a responsibility to discourage hazing and harassment whenever and wherever they see it. That goes doubly for university staff riding in the same buses where and when much of the abuse occurred.

Leckrone needs to make it perfectly clear to his students that any hazing activity will result in the perpetrators being thrown off the band for good.

Leckrone's job is on the line. So is the band's reputation.

If Leckrone and Co. want to be Badgers, they had better clean up their acts.

This should be their final warning.