Why we need to keep marching bands as a part of campus culture

The tradition of marching bands playing at football games started in 1887 at Notre Dame. People were so wired by the performances that the band brought to the games, that other colleges and even high schools started taking on this practice. Founded in 1939, the Marching Chiefs consisted of just 20 students, and today there are over 450 members. When you think of Florida State University, one of the first things that come to mind is how great their marching band is. With their great performances and ultimate pride, the Marching Chiefs have always been apart of the FSU culture.

Earlier this month, Clay Travis, host of “Outkick the Coverage” on Fox Sports, made statements on the banning of marching band halftime shows at college football games, and frankly, many people disagree. He started off his podcast by going on about how the games take so long, and blamed it on the 20 minutes of a marching show. Specifically, the 5-hour game he was covering took so long because of the ” long performance” of the marching band, not because of overtime, right? Then he went on to state that most people don’t even care about watching the band, and compared the halftime’s of college football to the NFL, saying that ” NFL halftimes are half as long”. In response to Mr. Travis’ input, and other opinions about why marching band shows should be banned at halftime shows, I say it’s completely crazy, and here’s why.

College marching bands, and more specifically the Florida State Marching Chiefs, do more than just play at football games. They play at a number of events, like the Homecoming parade, and when they’re at football games they add a ton of flavor. The Marching Chiefs practice everyday, Monday through Friday from 4 to 6 pm, working their butts off to provide entertainment for our university, and the games we attend every home weekend. Ashleigh Hatsell, an FSU Marching Chief majoring in Music Therapy, says “Marching band adds such a unique aspect to the football games. Music is magical and in the atmosphere of a football game, it gets the crowd pumped.” Magical is exactly right.

Jenny Karpinski, an FSU student majoring in Elementary Education told The Tab, ” The Marching Chiefs bring so much school spirit to FSU. I look forward to the halftime at every football game. They pump up the stadium with their amazing performances!” I don’t think it’s false to say that the Marching Chiefs bring the most spirit to the school. Not only do they support the school at home football games, they’re one of the few people to go to away games to support us, even at our biggest rival schools like Miami. In his argument about marching bands, Clay Travis repeatedly said that most people don’t care about watching the performances, when in reality most people stay for them. In fact, when I asked people about their favorite part of the football game, it was the marching band show.

Every once and a while, you’ll read an article on how marching band performances don’t matter, and usually you don’t think much of it because you know they’re wrong. Clay Travis of “Outkick the Coverage” was just another one of those silly commenters. It’s understandable people have their own opinions, but when it comes to taking away over a century- old tradition, it’s going to attract controversy. On the contrary to Travis’ remarks, Ethan Brown, a Music Education major at Florida State stated, “A lot of people just come to see the marching band show, they don’t really care about the whole game”.