First, a little history. Like many schools (unfortunately), for the past few years our football team has looked down on our marching band and the old coach made negative comments over the years. Our football team has won 3-4 games in the past 4 years but our marching band has been state finalists 80% of the time over the past 2 decades. We even have state championships for Winter Percussion and Winter Guard. In other words, we are awesome!
This year, our band has continued to attend every home game and play to the end, providing school spirit. Two weeks ago, the new coach visited a band rehearsal and was in awe of the physical & mental strength it took to make our show work. He told our band director that he personally appreciated the band during the football games and he found out that the band practices 3 times longer each week than the football team. In short, he saw the quality and the commitment. Yeah!
And then the story gets good.....
We sponsored our annual marching band invitational competition with 12 band coming from all over the state. The football coach told his team that they were to come to the competition to support the band AND be our pit crew! (For those of you who are not in band, the pit crew are parents and fans that have 3 minutes to move all of the huge equipment and props onto the field and then have to get everything off just as fast.) The football team showed up in their jerseys and were huffing and puffing to pull the percussion equipment and tarps onto the field, then they stood on the sidelines in formation during the show, then they got everything back off. It was awesome! Most of them were happy to do it and all of the starters were there.
This is gonna be a great year and I hope the beginning of a great relationship between the band and the teams.
Just had to share something good!
(BTW, many of the parents were secretly chuckling to see the big football players struggling to pull the timpanis, tarps, etc... that we do every week but we are decades older.)
This year, our band has continued to attend every home game and play to the end, providing school spirit. Two weeks ago, the new coach visited a band rehearsal and was in awe of the physical & mental strength it took to make our show work. He told our band director that he personally appreciated the band during the football games and he found out that the band practices 3 times longer each week than the football team. In short, he saw the quality and the commitment. Yeah!
And then the story gets good.....
We sponsored our annual marching band invitational competition with 12 band coming from all over the state. The football coach told his team that they were to come to the competition to support the band AND be our pit crew! (For those of you who are not in band, the pit crew are parents and fans that have 3 minutes to move all of the huge equipment and props onto the field and then have to get everything off just as fast.) The football team showed up in their jerseys and were huffing and puffing to pull the percussion equipment and tarps onto the field, then they stood on the sidelines in formation during the show, then they got everything back off. It was awesome! Most of them were happy to do it and all of the starters were there.
This is gonna be a great year and I hope the beginning of a great relationship between the band and the teams.
Just had to share something good!
(BTW, many of the parents were secretly chuckling to see the big football players struggling to pull the timpanis, tarps, etc... that we do every week but we are decades older.)
