Opinion: Marching Band IS a glorious sport

The band works on the green in the afternoon sun.

Although I have been through three band camps, I visited as a recent graduate, partly to support the drum line, and partly to garner an outsiders' perspective of my high school marching band. I am not obligated to wake up early anymore for camp, but I crawl out of bed at 8:30 AM anyway. I stand in the shade and watch everyone's sunglasses tans develop before my eyes. In the past years, my skin started peeling because I was stupid and forgot to put on sunscreen, but I secretly pitied my fresh-faced classmates who spent the last two weeks before school playing video games instead of attending band camp.

Marching band, I've heard, is the "sport for smart people." Members require incredible skill to play the right notes, march in the right direction, and watch the drum major all at the same time. We sit down to talk about dehydration, we stretch, and we do push-ups for conditioning and punishment. Marching band practice can be more draining than track practice, but it's fairer for all body types. I could practice sprinting for decades and still lose a race to a ten-year old with more fast twitch muscles. Marching band competitions are not about midget me futilely running the 400-meter dash against a long-legged tall girl, it's about midget me and my musical skills and my hours of practice with my teammates with their skills and hours of practice, trying to entertain the crowd and get a good score while we're at it. However, I don't mean to say that other sports require less focus, training, or smarts. I want to fix the incorrect assumption that band is only for geeks. Marching band is for athletic geeks, and everyone else.

A friend from a marching-band-deprived school told me he wished he could march in the drum line. While it is true that he has never run around a turf field with a bass drum hurting his shoulders for hours on end in 100-degree weather at the complete mercy of an irritated band director (we're all irritated and dehydrated), he has a legitimate wish. Marching band, despite its many hours of required grueling practice, rewards us with friendships, leadership experience, and a sense of pride.

On a tangent, I and other recent 2012 graduates complained about the coolness of the music and drill for this upcoming season. The show we marched as seniors, "Veni Vidi Vici," seemed "lame" in comparison.  Perhaps we can only remember the problems we had throughout the season with the written drill and music. But on closer inspection, I find that we ignored many precious things about our senior year season: the closeness of our band family, the impressive awards/rank we received at our last show, the tremendous improvement that the brass section made, and the fake baby that served as Caesar and Cleopatra's child. Also, the authority that our drum majors presented with their costumes and sword-swinging skills cannot be discounted. Most importantly, I still get goosebumps from listening to that space chord at the end of the show on YouTube. "Veni Vidi Vici," despite all the trouble, was still a glorious show, and we should do our best to honor it in our memories.

Marching bands combine talent and intense day-long practices to produce a few minutes of bombastic music and color. Is the effort worth it? Ask the members who return every year, without fail.