Daisy Sklar had only been a Wolverine for four months when she stood in front of more than 5,000 maize-and-blue fans at the Alumni Territory National Championship Pep Rally in Houston. She cracked jokes with the other two emcees, hyped up the crowd, and helped demonstrate the “Blues Brothers” choreography, one day before she watched the Wolverines defeat the Washington Huskies amid a sea of U-M football fans.
“It is honestly amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better first year here,” she says.
Sklar had just finished her first semester at U-M, but she was far from a stranger to all things Maize and Blue. Her dad, Randy Sklar, ’94, and uncle Jason Sklar, ’94, of the comedic duo the Sklar Brothers, both attended U-M and continued to show their pride throughout her life. She’d grown up hearing how incredible U-M was but didn’t understand it for herself until she joined her dad on a trip to campus, where she got to meet passionate film students — her future classmates, though she didn’t know it at the time.
The next day, Sklar and her dad went to a football game and one of the film students recognized her. She took the time to talk to Sklar and tell her she had to come to U-M. Sklar says the kindness and comradery she felt from that student secured U-M as her top choice.
“I just knew that I would never be alone. I knew I would always have a community here even if I knew no one coming in. It wouldn’t be hard for me to find a community of people that love the same things. I love that everyone here is tied by a genuine love for the school and a devotion to Michigan,” Sklar says.
Sklar always watched U-M football with her dad but loved getting to finally see the action unfold from the student section.
“I remember being a kid and being like, ‘Why are you mad? Why are you so nervous about this football game? It’s just a football game,’” Sklar says. “And then I remember calling him after one of the very first games as I was leaving the Big House and I was like, ‘I get it. I understand, Dad. I understand because I couldn’t breathe the whole game. I was on the edge of my seat.’”
After attending the Alumni Territory Rose Bowl Pep Rally — which featured the Sklar Brothers — the Rose Bowl game, and other events, Sklar expressed that she hoped to one day be involved in U-M events like her dad. Soon, she was set to join the family business as a co-emcee of the national championship pep rally just a week later.
Sklar prepared for the event with her dad and uncle on the trip to Houston, riffing and making jokes around their established talking points — a similar process, she says, to how the Sklar Brothers develop their stand-up comedy routines or jokes for other speaking events. But Sklar’s first-semester extracurriculars also helped prepare her for the big show.
“I live in, I would say, America’s funniest household. That might just be me. But I grew up, we’re always joking, we’re always making people laugh. But there’s another element to comedy: the performance,” Sklar says.
“Working on sketch [comedy] really is helping me a lot, building jokes and writing. And improv is helping me with the performance part. I think they worked side-by-side to get me to a really good spot.”
Sklar is part of The Comedy Company (more commonly known as “ComCo”) improv group and is part of the first troupe of Employees of the Month, a new sketch comedy student group. She also started a new job as a campus tour guide, hoping to show prospective students how “special” the University and community are. She’s looking forward to working on her writing, digging into her film major classes, and exploring other performance opportunities, like podcasts or radio, in her next three years on campus.
As Sklar prepared to head back to Los Angeles for the summer, she says she wouldn’t change anything about her “wild” first year.
“I just thought to myself: I’ll never experience anything like this ever again. But boy, was it worth it.”
Katherine Fiorillo is the editor of Michigan Alum.
