I said before that I am not the only band director who has come across road blocks while engaging in football game duty - everything from extra pay for CIF play-off games, to conflicts over students enrolled in both band and football. I've even heard of people threatening to resign over the amount of half-time playing opportunities. The response from the football / admin crowd? - usually something along the lines of "It's a football game, not a band concert" or "Playing at the football games is a privilege."
Before I go on - I have to offer up this humble disclaimer that I have never heard either of these statements come out of the mouths of any of the principals nor coaches that I have worked with - a fact that makes me very grateful. (Palpatine, didn't actually say it, but it was probably in there somewhere... regardless, I don't consider her someone I "worked with" as much as "suffered under") They are, however, common sentiments in schools around the country, and I am always prepared to meet them head-on should I need to.
Surprisingly enough, I actually agree with the first one... it most certainly is a football game and not a band concert. And as much as I sympathize with my colleagues who bust their asses to perfect their 8-to-5 steps and have their sousaphones polished to a blinding shine before every Friday night appearance, I do not share their enthusiasm and fervor for band equal time. That's because.... (Drum Roll) ...I never cared that much about football games to begin with....
The only reason why I can follow the action is because I spent the last 17 years of my life attending high school football games with my bands. Former Principal Palpatine tried to convince me that it was my professional responsibility to be an enthusiastic part of the football experience... which is funny when you consider that, historically speaking, faked enthusiasm was never a good thing. Of course, had I just mustered up some genuine gusto, it wouldn't be a problem. Likewise, had the kidnapped Africans living in the South willingly and cheerfully gone to work in the cotton fields, they wouldn't have had to call it slavery.
Now, despite this, I do want to be supportive of the home team. I've always tried to appear spirited whilst at the games - I even tried to make it as fun as possible for my kids. I never flat-out resisted or even complained about football duty, and I never plan to. But I never considered the games to be prime performance opportunities for my band. And even though I'll probably get a bigger audience at the game than I ever will at a concert... I just can't get all that inspired by the overblown execution of bad arrangements of out-dated pop songs. besides, I don't have a marching band, which means that I don't have a field show that I've been working on since August that I'm dying to show the crowd for the 5th time.
So yeah, on any given Friday night I'd pick a movie or a nice dinner with the wife any day over warming a cold metal bleacher with my ass while trying to keep the drummers from throwing sticks at each other for three hours. They could pretty much cut band out of the games altogether and I wouldn't take it too hard. That brings me to the next statement - "Playing at the football games is a privilege." - which kind of implies that the opportunity can be taken away if we don't seem appreciative enough (some day I'd love to call a bluff on that one). I'm kind of irked that it hasn't occurred to the idiots who would say something that insulting that it's also a privilege to have the band at the football games. Again, I've been fortunate that I've never had to work with a football coach who flat-out thought that the band was an extension of the football program - or maybe I just put in enough effort to merit faked mutual respect.
The people that really get under my skin are the pushy football parents. Not all of them are pushy - I've actually talked to quite a few level-headed ones. They'll listen to me lay out why the band/football relationship tends to be one-sided, and they say "Wow, I never thought of it that way before - you guys do sacrifice a lot." And you know what? a lot of times that's all I need to hear to make me feel really appreciated... and I don't mind accommodating them so much.
But then a lot of them just feel entitled to our presence - which comes from a culture that evolved out of a century of nation-wide football obsession. Whether or not they are conscious of it , they believe that everyone on campus should support, if not worship their pig-skin touting child - simply because decades ago in small town America everyone rallied around their high school football team. They didn't have televised sports and major league franchises with billion-dollar marketing to invest in - just their own home-grown team whose members were truly the local heroes.
Band was a lot different back then, too. Once upon a time, the band wasn't just heard at the football games, they were everywhere. People went out of their way to go hear the band play, because that was the only music they were exposed to, if they weren't musicians themselves. The same kind of fervor that they had over football was applied to Sousa marches and Waltzes - and so the band provided not just the in-game entertainment, they were the town hall dancing music as well.
We're not that America anymore... but just like the way we cling to outdated, agriculturally based school schedules, we have inherited the expectations of musical representation at athletic events, which pretty much equates to servitude. But the athletic parents don't see it that way because they don't have kids in band. They've never been asked to take time out of their schedule to show up to an event in support of someone else's kid. Band and cheer families do that all the time, sometimes on short notice and requiring the alteration or cancellation of personal plans.
So, pushy athletic parent, when you tell me that "you'd really appreciate more band appearances"... you better damn well understand what it is you're asking for, because I can put money on the fact that you won't be showing up to any of our concerts.
(To be continued)
2 comments:
I like your perspective. I played in a band when I was in high school 20 years ago, and it wasn't that much fun being the sideshow for a losing football team in northeastern Utah. It was worse on weeks when we had to do the half-time show because we had to wear our polyester uniforms in the stands, too, instead of triple layers of clothes under band sweatshirts--with our coats and stacks of blankets...
Who was really watching us, I don't know...halftime was for going to the bathroom and getting hot chocolate. Most of our parents had the sense to stay home because they'd get to see a good performance out of us another time in an (warm) auditorium.
Yep, it's always about the athletes and the rest of us are just there for them. Our skills and practice went unnoticed. (We practiced our field shows on the field before dawn in the mornings, of course. AGAIN, cold!)
Some might say that's what I signed up for--like the cheerleaders--but I started band in 7th grade, and the requirement to play at high school football games 4 years later wasn't even on the board yet at that time.
Nonetheless, from a band member's point of view, those freezing nights in the stands were some of the best memories I had of high school because those kids in band were my closest friends. What else would we have been doing on a Friday night? Half the time I wasn't even watching the game; I was goofin' with my friends between songs. I hope that with or without the drama you're encountering that your musicians have more fun than misery and are left with some great memories of high school band.
We have the advantage of being in So Cal - so the weather/temperature element is a lot more moderate. I feel for band-os in other parts of the country.
One of my main focuses with my band program is building a sense of community, so even when we're doing something out of 'obligation' I try to use it as an opportunity to bring people together. One of the things they look forward to is going out for food afterwords (we usually have a party of at least 10 people going to the nearest Coco's afterwords) So yeah - while the principle of the band/football relationship still irks me, the way it plays out isn't so bad.
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