The band travels to every football game and performs a halftime show that an audience won’t forget. Behind the scenes of these off campus performances is a crew of students and parents working as a team to move the band. Positions such as loading crew, uniform fixers and water carriers all work in unison ensuring safe travels.  

“Moving the band requires a lot of participants,” senior Cora-Grace Smith said. “Each participant has their own specific job and this allows for flawless transitions from place to place. We have uniform fixers, uniform sellers for lost items, people who pass out water, people who run around looking for nail-polish and jewelry to take off, loading crew to load and unload every instrument, leadership members to guide the band on where to go, people to help set up and take down in the chorus, band and keyboard lab, people who run concessions, visits from music shack, and much, much more.”

To ensure that all the roles are fulfilled, it is crucial for the band to work as a team. The students must be focused on their music, marches and roles. The band is like a stack of dominoes if one falls the whole group could collapse.

“Band is a lot like a team sport,” senior Anayansi Santiago said. “It takes multiple people for a single demonstration. If everyone worked individually, the band would function very randomly and without order. In marching band, the goal is to have the best performance together as a unit. That can only be achieved if every single person plays their music correctly, marches in time, and performs at the highest ability that they’re able to do.”

Despite the stress and challenges of working in unison and the long bumpy rides of away games, the end result is a successful performance, opportunities for the students to socialize and have fun and cheers from the crowd. 

“I find away games to be tons of fun,” Santiago said. “While some people may not like them because of the time they take or bumpy bus rides, I enjoy them because singing random songs at the top of my lungs with people I’m not really familiar with is always such a fun experience. Good conversations spur between friends and so it pretty much becomes social hour with those I’m already friends with, and with those I now get to know at a more comfortable level.”