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OHIO STATE FOOTBALL
Band whistles down proposal
Sunday, May 14, 2006 Doug Lesmerises
Plain Dealer Reporter
Imagine The Ohio State University Marching Band running out of time and settling for a script Ohi. Sorry O, we have to the move the game along.
With that possibility looming, the rumbling heard beneath the college football scene the last few months was that of clarinets honking in protest. When the NCAA Football Rules Committee suggested giving teams the option of reducing halftime from 20 minutes to 15 minutes next season, no one on the committee anticipated the backlash that followed from band directors and alumni.
The message came through in Buckeye country.
"The one thing you don't mess with at Ohio State is the team," said Jon Waters, assistant director of OSU's marching and athletic bands, "and I guess you don't mess with the band, either."
"That's kind of what I heard," Big Ten Conference Commissioner Jim Delaney said. "I didn't quite hear the bands playing in the background, but the message was there."
The proposal is still to be voted on by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel on May 30 after the idea was tabled during a previous meeting. Still, the plan is all but dead, beaten down by angry sousaphones and piccolos.
"All signs point to it going back to 20 minutes," said Ty Halpin, the associate director of the oversight panel.
That's because band lovers mobilized, in crisp, rhythmic fashion. Mark Spede, chairman of the Marching Band Task Force for the College Band Directors National Association, sent out an e-mail of warning to the membership last week. And band directors said they had the backing of their athletic departments - which, incidentally, were likely concerned about losing sponsored contests and events if halftime is shortened.
The NCAA is trying to reduce game times that averaged 3 hours, 21 minutes last season.
But besides monetary marketing motives, there are legitimate musical reasons to keep the NCAA from emulating the NFL's 15-minute halftime.
"This is part of what makes college football uniquely different from professional football," said CBDNA secretary Richard Floyd of the University of Texas. "The tumblers and the bands and the pageantry - for the alumni, I think that plays an important role."
To be fair, Script Ohio, like most traditional band numbers, are performed before the game. But that's why band members value halftime, where they can work in new, themed performances each week. And Waters said Ohio State sometimes does make the script part of those new halftimes shows.
Regardless, shaving five minutes off halftime would cut the legs out from The Best Damn Band In The Land.
"The effect on us would have been pretty significant," Waters said. "It would have diminished our role in the game and diminished our effectiveness. In a sense, we would have become a pep band that plays in the stands rather than a marching band."
