Banding Together

They play their hearts out in the hot sun, wearing uniforms heavy enough to suck sweat from a stone. They run complicated formations they've perfected during hours of practice in the heat. They play when they're hurt and each week expend every drop of energy they possess trying to impress you, the fan sitting comfortably in the stands.

But does anyone ever truly appreciate the marching band?

Probably not. Yet, on this hot, still humid September evening, Cheyenne High School's Desert Shields Marching Band is hitting the field for you anyway.

It's not the biggest band in town. But, with apologies to Ohio State University: It sure is the feistiest band in the land.

First-year band director Dan Haddad estimates that he'll field about 45 band members this season, up by about 15 from last year. But, he adds, that includes the school's dance team, which this year will double as the band's color guard.

Haddad comes to Cheyenne after stints as drum line instructor with numerous high school marching bands and as a graduate assistant director at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, Fla. He played percussion during his own marching band days and brings to his new job -- his first as band director -- an almost deliriously upbeat energy combined with an appreciation for ritual, tradition and all of those other intangibles that help to turn a group of musicians into an actual band.

Three hours before kickoff, band members, decked out in their brand-new band T-shirts, mill around the band room, checking out their instruments, talking or working their cell phones. Scrawled on the board are a few of the songs they've been working on for their first halftime show: Cheyenne's fight song and war chant; "Soul Finger" by the Bar-Kays; Kansas' "Carry on My Wayward Son"; and, most interesting of all, "Build Me Up Buttercup" by the Foundations, all the way from 1968.

It's an ambitious list because the band hasn't practiced as much as, it seems, anybody would have liked. Haddad says tonight's halftime show, which will run a tight six minutes, was put together in all of three rehearsals.

Haddad gathers the band around him and gives a rundown of their schedule, which is packed with firsts: first practice on the actual football field, first donning of the two-year-old band uniforms, first time playing before a paying crowd.

As on any team, the significance of the season-opener is felt most acutely by the veterans and the rookies. Band President Breanna Floyd, a senior, already is getting a sense of how it's going to feel when this season's last performance arrives.

Tonight, Floyd says with a melancholy smile, will be "my first last high school game."

"I love this band," she adds. "They're my family."

Meanwhile, Anthony "Kory" Moreno is just nervous. Moreno, a freshman, will be playing bass drum which is, he notes, "my first instrument ever."

Even weirder: He's been playing it for just five days.

"Everything moves a lot faster than I thought," Moreno admits. "I thought that everything would have taken more time. I pictured my first performance as being, like, three months from now."

Haddad explains later that Moreno enrolled in beginning band class, designed for kids who've "never played a note in their entire life." But, it seems, the band's need for players and Moreno's desire to learn percussion meshed nicely.

Now, with just a few hours before kickoff, Moreno is feeling "very bipolar."

"I'm just nervous I'm gonna mess up. I don't really want to, because I don't want my career, per se, to be messed up and I want to try to be as good as I can."

Fortunately, Moreno figures Nate Strothers, bass drum section leader, has his back. Strothers "taught me everything I know," Moreno says.

Even better news for Moreno is that Strothers, a junior, admits that he, too, felt nervous before his first performance.

And now? "I'm a pro at it," Strothers says. "No nerves."

Junior Sarah Kirkpatrick will take the field tonight wearing a piece of band gear her band mates won't: A bandage around her ankle, because she'll be playing hurt.

Last season, while doing a quick march during a band competition, Kirkpatrick noticed a hole in the field in front of her. But, she says, a judge was standing right next to her and, rather than avoiding the hole, stepped into it so as to not throw off the routine.

"My foot swelled up," Kirkpatrick says, "but I kept marching because I didn't want to blow the competition."

It turned out she'd torn a tendon and damaged ligaments in her ankle. But Kirkpatrick is putting off surgery because the post-surgical rehab that'd be required would make her miss band season.

After a pregame run-through -- the band sounds good but looks a bit uneven on their formations -- Haddad gathers the group and emphasizes how far they've come since their two weeks of summer practice. It's not enough to wipe the slightest skepticism from a few of the players' faces.

An-hour-and-15-minutes before kickoff, the band members begin donning their uniforms. And, nothing against the band T-shirts they've worn up to now, but a strange thing happens: They begin to look almost regal, and definitely like a marching band.

"I heard some of the other directors weren't suiting them up this early in the season, but I didn't know that," Haddad confides. "So we're going to do it and they're going to look great."

At 6:30, a half-hour before kickoff, the band and the color guard/dance team finally head to the field.

While inspecting her now-downright natty band, Floyd, nearing sniffledom, is sounding almost maternal.

"Look at our band," she says, smiling. "They look so good."

Ripples of nervous energy flow back and forth along the band line. But Haddad isn't even remotely worried about their big debut.

Actually, he says, "I'm really excited for them. I think they're going to do a great job."

Besides, Haddad adds, "they're nervous enough for everybody."

Pregame festivities pass by in a blur. After marching over to their section of the grandstands, the band gets the crowd moving with the school's fight song and war chant. As the first quarter progress, the crowd, amazingly, begins to respond with applause and synchronized hand chops.

"I tell you, that is all us," Haddad shouts.

During the second quarter, the band premieres "Soul Finger," complete with the "oohs" and "ahhs." As the minutes tick down to halftime and the band's public debut, Floyd tells a band mate that it's her "first last game."

Haddad overhears. "That's an oxymoron," he says.

"She said, 'It's her last first game' " a band mate offers helpfully.

"No, it's my first last game," Floyd says.

The Abbott and Costello routine eventually ends, though, and, with three minutes left in the second quarter, it's time for the band to march to the sideline.

"You guys look spectacular," Haddad offers. "So ... shiny."

All of the stress, all of the worry, all of the preparation end in a halftime show that goes off without a hitch -- Haddad later will say they played a bit too fast, a not uncommon marching band thing because of the adrenaline rush of performing live -- and when the players return to the stands, Haddad is pleased.

As a rule, he tells them, "you're never able to live up to your very best practice. But I'd say that was 95 percent of what we've been able to do, and I think you guys should be very proud. So everybody give yourselves a round of applause, take your jackets off and enjoy the rest of the game. I can see you're all dead."

As the second half continues, the adrenaline rush that carried the players through the halftime show begins to ebb. The players continue to offer up numerous renditions of the fight song and the war chant and, in the third quarter, their very good and appropriately loud debut of "Buttercup." Still, whatever the marching band equivalent of the thousand-yard stare is begins to appear on several players' faces.

The game ends in a loss for Cheyenne on the field. But, in the band room after the game, it's a definite "W" for the marching band. By the time the musicians -- the ones who haven't opted to end a very long day as quickly as they can -- are heading across the field for a complimentary hot dog, Haddad is smiling not only about their performance but about the band's prospects. He'll be losing only a handful of seniors for next year, and his crop of underclassmen will provide a solid core upon which to build.

"It's my goal to have at least 100 people up there," he says, and in only three or four years, too.

For now, Haddad is willing to accept that whole "feisty but small " thing. But, give it another year or two, he says, smiling, "and it'll be 'feisty but big.' "