In the hours leading up to UCLA’s 31-0 win over Stanford
on Saturday, the UCLA marching band took its usual show to the
people, even if there was little reward for it.
The Bruin marching band could be an easily misunderstood group.
After all, it seems like a paradox to make a job out of rooting for
a football team.
The band is a bunch of people whose images are mysteriously
guarded by those outlandish capes.
But one of the things that separates college football from the
NFL and college basketball from the NBA is the pageantry that the
marching bands bring to the event.
The band’s goings-on started hours before the
UCLA-Stanford game kickoff.
The UCLA band boarded a line of buses on Charles E. Young Drive
at exactly 1 p.m. to get to the Rose Bowl for a game that started
six hours later, leaving right on time with almost military
efficiency. Until 3 p.m., the band rehearsed in the Lot K parking
lot while the tailgating warmed up.
“Everything is followed really closely. If they say
we’re going to leave at 1, we leave at 1,” said Ben
Tellinghuisen, a trumpet player, while his peers munched on their
Burger King lunches after rehearsal.
Tellinghuisen joined the band five years ago, and it was there
that he met his longtime girlfriend, Leah. Four weeks ago the
couple became Mr. and Mrs. Tellinghuisen, a matrimony of a trumpet
player and a snare drummer.
At 4 p.m., the band trekked around the Rose Bowl and played for
tailgaters before making its way to the (interim)
Chancellor’s Tent for a traditional rendition of “Sons
of Westwood.”
Meanwhile, the parents of the band members gathered together for
their own pregame rituals: watching a few TVs tuned to college
football, eating some barbecue and playing Scrabble. (The low-key
Scrabble players seemed pretty tame when compared to the group of
people next to them, who were hitting a four-way beer bong).
While the pregame festivities have become tradition for
tailgaters, they are also a basic way to fundraise for the
band.
Band Director Gordon Henderson introduced himself before the
band geared everybody up for an 8-clap. It’s a spiel he
recited maybe a hundred times by the end of the night, and he will
probably recite it another hundred times this Saturday as well.
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“Hello, everyone. We are trying to send the band to the
Notre Dame and Cal road trips. It would be the first time we travel
twice in one year,” he said. “We are also trying to
overcome a $34,000 budget cut.”
The band members received a rock star’s welcome to each
new tailgating camp and were often asked to take pictures with
little kids and old ladies in Troy Aikman jerseys.
The addition, the band’s official juggler, Chris Smith,
made the afternoon seem like an old vaudeville act.
Smith, wearing his signature blue-on-blue suit with all sorts of
juggling goodies, brings a zany showmanship to the whole
performance.
“USC rocks, USC rocks,” yelled a group of
front-toothless kids, who appeared to be 5 or 6 years old.
“It’s OK, kids,” Smith said.
“You’ll go to school and learn. It’s not your
fault. You’ve been indoctrinated.”
After about 90 minutes of playing for the Bruin faithful,
Henderson led the band members back to their buses, where they
suited up in full uniform for the game. But the Stanford band was
nowhere to be found.
For those who think that all marching bands are timid, the
Stanford group should definitely squash that notion.
After vandalizing their old music room upon the opening of a
newer one, the Stanford administration suspended its marching band
from playing at any home or away football games.
Of course, once the fans piled into the Rose Bowl and the game
neared, the UCLA marching band was in its element.
A fan sitting in the student section professed his love for the
UCLA juggler as the band finished its first song of the game.
“I love you too, but I think we should see other
people,” Smith said.
It was an exchange not readily available at an NFL game.