Doss Football

Meet my band kids. I used this little collage for a school newsletter that was sent out last month. We played the Homecoming Pep Rally several weeks ago and got to play our first football game last Friday night. It was a jam-packed evening.

Here is my play by play:

The Ringers

I invited Spencer to play trumpet and our friends Will and Candy to play baritone with us that evening. My brass section is sparse, and you can't accomplish a lot with a bunch of WW at a football game. A Doss math teacher, also a trumpet player, joined us.

The Weather

It was cold. Very cold. I was wearing three layers plus a coat, a scarf and gloves. They were not. I warned them. I even took them outside during the day to practice in the stands. They didn't get it. Most showed up with one layer. They were freezing by half time but to their credit, they hung in there. Sadly, most of them could barely make a squeak or a squawk by the fourth quarter. If not for our ringers, there would've been no sound at all.

The National Anthem

This is the one and only time during the game that everyone pays attention to the band. Truthfully, it left a lot to be desired. Not even the ringers could help us out of this one. We sound pretty good playing this indoors. Outside - not so much. Note to me: Take the kids outdoors to rehearse more before doing a football game next year.

#4!!!!

So my boy can play football! I have a senior snare drum player. You can kind of see him in the pictures above. He told me he was on the football team. Sure, I thought. He sits on the bench. But, NO. REALLY. He's on the football team. Running back. All night, the announcer kept calling his name. "And Brown with the carry." "It's Brown with a gain of 8 yards". HA! That's my band kid! I'm so proud.

Not so proud

So I had some lessons to learn as well. I had two kids that decided to be idiots for the night. Both of them trumpet players. Hmmm.

One kid showed up in all of his gothic garb complete with jet black mohawk. Great. He's a troubled kid and I am willing to overlook this if he'll sit in the stands and play trumpet with us. (They did not have a specific "uniform" that they were to wear for the evening.) That didn't happen. 3 minutes into the game he's ripped off all of his outerwear and has shirt and pants rolled up like it's August, taking a puff off his friend's cigarette. Double great. Bascially I told him to shape up or ship out. He shipped out. It was a good choice on his part.

The other kid was a dream during the game. She was active, excited, participating, cheering....oh, and drunk. This was brought to my attention, by an administrator (sheesh!) after she had been spotted during half-time with her special liquid. I got a whif of her, and yep, she was full of school spirit. Luckily, her mom was there and they all had a talk with the prinicpal before they left.

And thankfully, the administration still likes me and didn't hold any of this against me. It'll be like going through an airport after 9/11 before we play any basketball games though.

Summary

Overall, it was really a good night. Yes, the bads were bad, but few knew they even existed. All of my kids showed up ON TIME (a small miracle) and toughed it out the entire game. Talking about it in class today, they all thought the experience was a positive one and are looking forward to basketball games and more football next year. Some of them are even asking to march!