Flash back to this time last year as band members geared up for a home game. It’s exactly 5:35 p.m. on a cloudy Friday, and the members of the Oregon State University Marching Band are packed into two tunnels on the north side of Reser Stadium. This is a game day — kickoff for the Beavers football game against Utah is about a half an hour away — and everything for the next 25 minutes or so hinges on precise timing. The band’s pregame show starts in about 11 minutes. This game is being nationally televised, so time matters there as well. By this point — before the nearly 300 members of the band have played even one note in front of a packed stadium — they’ve been in their uniforms for more than four hours: band members report five hours before kickoff. Hours ago, they rehearsed on the field. Since then, they’ve marched down the Beaver Walk, performed on the steps at Gill Coliseum and the CH2M HILLAlumni Center for appreciative fans and dined on baked potatoes. At this moment, as they wait in the tunnels at Reser, it will be nearly another five hours before they leave the stadium. Meanwhile, a pair of military jets is zooming toward Reser for a flyover that’s timed to occur as the band reaches a specific spot in its performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The flyover is scheduled for exactly 5:54 and 30 seconds. If the band doesn’t hit the mark, it’s not as if the jets can just turn around for a do-over. But that’s about 20 minutes away. Right now, they await the signal to march onto the field. It’s time for The Spirit and Sound of Oregon State University to take the field — an OSU tradition that dates back to at least 1890. TRADITION GOOD AND TIMES Since those early days, the OSU Marching Band has grown to become the largest student group on campus, and the 2023-24 edition is one of the largest ever fielded. By the time the full band, including its new first-year members, had gathered for band camp in the days before the start of classes, it was 285 members strong. Only about 10% of its members are music majors; in fact, 65 different majors, covering all of OSU’s colleges, are represented in the band’s ranks. The reasons students give for joining the band are legion, but ask around enough, and certain themes emerge: Many have parents or relatives who played in marching bands. Others like the opportunity to perform before tens of thousands of people. Still others just enjoy playing fun music in a collegial atmosphere. Says Trinity Henderson, one of the four leaders of the trumpet section (the largest section in the band): “It’s an automatic way to have a giant group of friends.” With so many members, Olin Hannum, OSU’s associate director of bands, has to rely heavily on its student leaders. “When you have numbers like that, organization is from the top down,” he says. So student leadership is a constant with the band — from signaling instructions all the way to choosing the halftime shows. But while the halftime shows change, the band’s 11-minute pregame routine has been essentially the same since 1968. In fact, Hannum says he hears complaints if he messes around too much with it. And no wonder: The show plays like a greatest-hits revue of OSU fight songs, with “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the marching band chestnut “Rock and Roll Part II” thrown in for good measure. Much of the music was written by former OSU band directors. The pregame always includes the maneuver known as the “Beaver Spell-Out,” with the members of the band spelling out the letters “O”, “S” and “U” across the field. Legendary band director James Douglass wrote the music for that section. The pregame show is a celebration of tradition, says Justin Preece, the band’s percussion coordinator and drumline instructor. “And that’s something that multiple generations of fans can recognize,” Preece says. “And they do — octogenarians standing up, clapping enthusiastically and singing. Kids who haven’t hit double digits do the same thing. And that’s a nice unifying moment.” RAIN OR SHINE, WIN OR LOSE, OUR MARCHING BAND PLAYS ON. p. 42 3:40 p.m. Trombones wait in the tunnel for the final pregame runthrough. 3:45 p.m. Band members rehearse in an empty Reser Stadium. 4:30 p.m. An early dinner of baked potatoes at the Truax Indoor Practice Center. 4:55 p.m. Bass drummers outside of Gill Coliseum for the pregame step show.
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