Picture this: it’s game day at Rentschler Field and Pratt and Whitney Stadium, and the first half of the football game is just ending. You’re getting ready to grab some concessions up at the concourse, but when you look down at the field once again, you see us: the University of Connecticut Marching Band. You might be wondering to yourself: what kind of day are they having today? What did they have to do to be here performing for you? This is the hectic, exhausting, and lengthy day in the life of a band member on a game day.
Chapter One: Early Mornings
Game day holds no punches, and the first one it hits you with is the early call time. Call time is the time that everybody in the band has to be up at our practice field at W-Lot to depart on our fleet of buses on our way to the football field, and for a game at noon, call time was 5:30 a.m. So, after a solid four hours of sleep, my day starts at 4:00 a.m., taking about an hour to wake up, gather my things, and do a quick freshening up before heading out and making my way to W-Lot. My morning routine for game days is nothing special; just brushing my teeth and cleansing my face is all I usually have time for.
I’m coming from the apartments by The Standard, but since I’m one of four members of my section with a car, I’m tasked with picking up a member from Northwest before completing my journey to the bus. These buses were like no other buses I’ve experienced in my previous three years in band; these were so cramped you couldn’t move an inch without bumping into something. Thankfully, I only had to travel a half hour in this bus, and a snack was provided: a spoon-less cup of yogurt, a banana, and a squeezable applesauce tube. Not exactly the most filling breakfast, but it only had to get me through the rehearsal at the top of the day. Half an hour later, we arrived at the stadium, and since I’m with the front ensemble, I get the joys of unloading our truck and building the auxiliary percussion setup. Usually, a truck unload is painless, but the rehearsal yesterday got heavily rained out, so everything was coated with a thin layer of moisture, making everything just that bit worse. One relatively painless truck unload later and a journey down the steepest ramp known to mankind, and we’re set up for our on-field rehearsal at around 7:30 a.m. Our on-field rehearsals always move very fast because there’s a lot of stuff to hit in the two hours we’re allotted. For this game, half of that went to our pregame performance with our alumni on the field and the other half went right into our halftime performance, but we really only have time for running every part of our show once before we have to go to the buses for breakfast!
Chapter Two: Pregame
A delightful new addition to the band this year is to these noon games — we get warm egg sandwiches during our breakfast block! They’re exactly the sandwiches that come in the cafés on campus, but man, it is so much better to get a warm egg sandwich at 10:00 a.m. than it is a cold turkey and cheese sandwich. Typically, in the game day schedule, we have two hours for lunch in which nothing too much goes on, but today was again very special since it was the debut of our brand new uniforms after 20 years. The plan was for everybody to change on the bus at the same time, and here’s where the problem of the cramped buses really showed itself. Being packed like sardines in an already cramped bus, even with the air conditioning on, the heat was astronomical. We were given around 10 to 15 minutes to get changed, which was more than enough time, and once we got the signal, we all poured out of the buses to applause from the alumni who were seeing these uniforms for the first time ever. Overall, the new uniforms are a quality improvement from the last, although they were quite tight on some of us and don’t allow for too much movement, which was bound to cause problems. However, there’s not too much time to worry about that for right now; we’ve got to walk over to the field to get ready for our pregame performance!
After a little fun with the opposing team’s mascot, it’s time to push on and set up for pregame! After four years of band, pregame is quite familiar, which is good when you consider that our halftime show is constantly changing week to week. After a few spirit songs and our national anthem, it’s time for rolling off the field so as to not get rushed by footballers. Roll-off is always so stressful as a part of the auxiliary percussion trio, since we have an immobile glockenspiel in the middle of our setup that we either have to carry or pawn off to somebody, but thankfully, we had two lovely staff members down on the field to help! Pregame went by as fast as we came in, and now, travelling across the stadium, it’s time for kickoff!
Chapter Three: Halftime
The band is obligated to remain standing for the entire game, given there aren’t player injuries, along with playing music for the stadium. For the first time ever in my college career, the front ensemble finally was able to play these stand tunes with the band. We only had one tambourine to share, so I pioneered a rudimentary rotation schedule in which the person playing the tambourine would switch off every couple of game minutes. For some reason, at this game, they did not want to stop the clock at all, however, leading to the collapse of this rotation very quickly. When the clock struck nine minutes left for the second quarter, we got our stuff situated and went down to the field for the halftime show! Halftime this week consisted of us playing through the first part of our exhibition show along with an arrangement of Korn’s “Freak on a Leash.” Right around halftime is when my four hours of sleep started catching up to me, but luckily I can run faster right into the second half of the day!
Chapter Four: Postgame
There were a few things that happened here that are worth mentioning, but for the most part the second half went fairly smoothly. The band tried a new thing this season with having rotations of people eat during the third quarter, although the methods used to pass out food and the fast game clock made it nearly impossible to stay on the preset rotations. Problems like this aren’t new for the UCMB, however, and we adapted pretty effortlessly to the circumstances. The other notable thing that happened to me this second half was the opportunity to ring the victory bell at the stadium. There are two things that you need to know about that bell: it’s very loud and heavy, so when my ear was right next to it without hearing protection…
The game went on for some agonizing length of time for someone who’s been up for almost 12 hours, and going to overtime didn’t really help this fatigue. Before I knew it, we lost, and it was finally time for our postgame performance. The thing about postgame today was that we didn’t know what we would be playing until we pushed onto the field, but thankfully we only had to play the first tune of halftime, “I Just Might” by Bruno Mars, and Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” along with the fight song and the alma mater as always. We sang the final chord of the alma mater and we could take a second to breathe, although we weren’t out of the trenches just yet. I glossed over this before, but this ramp, about 45 degrees in angle, was what was standing between us and loading the truck to get out of here. Going down isn’t too bad, but going up is the real killer at game day, especially after being awake for 12 hours, sweating our butts off in these uniforms, and performing three shows. The next UConn home game you go to, check out the equipment ramp by Gate C, and be grateful you never have to climb it.
Chapter Five: Going Home
Loading the truck is as painless as always, and just like that we were off again for campus. After the hardships that we had to endure today, it’s hard not to rest your eyes and drift off as we go down I-84, but I can never fall asleep on buses, so that was just a half hour I was barely awake for. After days like these, it’s not too uncommon to go off to the Union to get some food there, or to head off to a dining hall if somehow we get back earlier than 7:15 p.m., but getting back at around 6:30 and having been up for almost 15 hours, my friend Olivia and I figured it was about time to go home and rest. Getting back to my apartment at 7:00 p.m., the only thing we could still do that day was watch a movie to unwind and pass out. Today was a bit of a longer game day and a bit stranger and more complex, but if you’ve ever wanted to know the life of a band member, here it is laid out in its fullest.