Hey guys, this is my first post on here, and I just wanted to share this with you. I posted this on JJHuddle about a week ago, and thought I should share it here. Hope you guys enjoy.
You know, having a week off two week ago and having last week as concert week, I’ve kind of been getting sick of being with the marching band. All of the countless hours of practice for what? It seems like all this time off that it’s not paying off. It probably seems very hard to believe for you, but being here for your fourth year, things kind of get a little old. But then again, I’ve also been thinking about how I only have two more home games left. Two more ramps, two more Script Ohios in the Horseshoe. It’s really really hard to believe. Seems like just yesterday I was about to start crying from nervousness about to march out onto the field before the <st1 =""><st1 ="">Washington</st1><st1 =""> State</st1></st1> game in 2002. But in the end, it’s all worth to be in The Best Damn Band In The Land.
To an average fan, it may seem that it’s all about performing before, during, and after football games. Not so fast my friend. Yeah, we’re here to support the Buckeyes, I love the Buckeyes. But it’s more than that. It’s about getting up at <st1:time minute="0" hour="5">5am</st1:time> on a <st1:time minute="0" hour="12">noon</st1:time> kickoff to say The Lord’s Prayer with 28 of your best friends on the ramp. It’s about marching with 800 marching band alumni and noticing how much they’d kill to be in our uniform again. It’s about shedding a tear while singing Carmen Ohio with 105,000 close friends while on the field in the Script Ohio formation. It’s about the times when the Buckeyes are down at halftime, and you walk to get ready for pregame, and you see a dad has his arm around his son, and tells him “son, that’s the best band in the world.” It’s about giving a kid at the Alamo Bowl a feather off your plume and him having the biggest smile a kid could ever have. It’s about meeting great people at pepbands in <st1:city><st1 ="">Mansfield</st1></st1:city> during M*ch*g*n week. It’s about marching into skull session at about 220 bpm and getting so many chills going down your spine from hearing the arena roar that you about fall (provided there is no rug folded up at the bottom of the tunnel.) It’s about having your granddad come see you march at his first
OSU game, and shedding a tear saying to the people behind him “that’s my grandson.” It’s about marching into your first skull session, looking around the 13,000 seats for your parents, finally finding them, and seeing dad pump his fist, and mom wipe a tear from her eye. It’s about the flock of butterflies that fly around your stomach 3 minutes before starting pregame. It’s about keeping a thousand yard stare and not budging as people harass you and yell at you, yet to come out thinking even better about yourselves that yet, we still are The Best Damn Band In The Land. It’s about playing the Navy Hymn at skull session and seeing a vet in the stands with a tear running down his eye. It’s about getting up at 3:30am on a noon kickoff gameday to put on your uniform to look at yourself in the mirror, and to be so proud of yourself. It’s about the pride, not the rules, to make sure your cross belts are pure white and absolutely spotless and that you cover at all times. It’s about the times you volunteer for a pepband for a guy who has been suffering from a brain tumor, and as you’re enjoying some supplied foods a guy comes up and says to you “you may march on Saturdays and make one hundred thousand people raise to their feet and cheer, but you’ve never touched a man’s heart like you did tonight.” It’s about the countless hours of music memorization at home, only to look and sound perfect on the field in the best stadium in world. It’s about walking into the best stadium in the world every day to have class. It’s about going to the field on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two hours to work your tail off to get ready for tryouts. It’s about “Pick Up Your Feet! Turn Your <st1:street><st1:address>Corners Square</st1:address></st1:street>! And Drive, Drive, Drive!” It’s about playing Carmen Ohio for team as you look into each and every one of their eyes as the sound of the Victory Bell is in the background. It’s about sharing your instrument to a football player so he can march and play Script <st1:state><st1 ="">Ohio</st1></st1:state> while you teach him how to do it. It’s about marching out onto the field with 23 of your best friends with out playing anything as 105,000 people make it hard on you to be sure and stay on beat. It’s about driving through it. It’s about having a real buckeye sticker for every year you’ve made the band and a sticker of the Fiesta Bowl logo underneath the bill of your band hat. It’s about climbing A mountain in <st1 =""><st1:city>Tempe</st1:city>, <st1:state>AZ</st1:state></st1> overlooking Sun Devil Stadium with a sunset with your best friends. It’s about the best experience in the world.
Go Bucks