Band-o-rama

Picture this: you’re walking into the first Friday night football game of the year, with the smell of popcorn and the clammer of everyone’s excited conversations hitting the air. One thing stands out from the rest: the sound of the marching band.

The iconic ‘thumps’ of the drums, the sharp tingle of the trumpets, the ‘womp womp womp’ of the tubas make two levels of football superior environments to the highest-level of the sport, and I’ll tell you why.

You can play whatever song over the loud speaker that you want — AC/DC and Metallica are common favorites for football — but they surely do not replace the marching band. Sure, the loud speaker music serves its purpose for warm-up, and to give the stadium the ambiance and atmosphere, something that I would consider addicting.

But that still doesn’t replace the band. It’s made up of students that, just like the players on the field, put in a lot of practice throughout the summer. They work just as hard as the athletes do. They have to march in a specific pattern, at a specific time, at a specific place, all while playing an instrument. Military veterans know how hard it is to march while singing a cadence, now imagine having to play an instrument instead.

I’m about as musically talented as my right shoe, and as graceful as a horse doing the chicken dance. If you need any proof of this, just ask my daughter, and she will supply you with hundreds of stories. My naturally-gifted talents, or lack thereof, checked marching band off my bingo board of extracurricular activities, although I did gave band a shot once in fifth grade.

I have nothing but respect for the band. As a football player, there was no better feeling than walking past the pep band in the halls on Friday mornings while wearing my jersey. It instilled a bit of pride and possibly some tinnitus along the way. I didn’t care if I was going to my underwater basket-weaving class, I was walking into it with my chest puffed out just a little bit more than normal, which, when you’re the back-up JV center, is a lethal combination.

The atmosphere that they create is second-to-none. I get chills every time I hear the band at a high school or college game. There is absolutely nothing in this world that pumps me up the way the band does, whether it’s as the team takes the field, in between plays in a crucial moment, or as the fourth quarter starts in a close game.

I’m not the only one affected by this, either. Bands are an integral part of Saturday football at the college level. Ohio State’s band, affectionately known by a slightly-inappropriate moniker “dots the ‘I’”, “creates” Michael Jackson, and does various other formations that I didn’t think were possible. LSU’s band was banned from playing their signature song at Tiger Stadium because the crowd of over 100,000 sang it and added their own “flair”. Southern University had a moment go viral when they refused to stop playing after the ball was placed and the next play was starting — if you haven’t seen that video, I highly suggest you do.

So, as much as myself and the Sampson County community live vicariously through football, it wouldn’t be the sport it is without the band. The next time you’re at a game, stop and think about how much different the games would be if the bands weren’t there to add that much more to the atmosphere of it all.

Fun fact of the week: The Allen Escadrille of Allen High School in Texas boasts that it is the largest marching band in the country, with over 800 members.