The first football game

Many of you might know that I stumbled into being a band teacher (see "About Me") and that the program had been in shambles for a few years til I got there and started tricking the 5th graders into thinking they had to be in 6th grade band, and the 6th graders into thinking they had to be in 7th-12th grade band.

Right now I've filled the room with middle schoolers--next year being the year the core group of 8th graders moves on to high school, and I get to decide how long to keep up the trickery game considering that I'm about out of instruments.

So this big group of raw, unformed 7th graders were told, in no uncertain terms, that they had to attend the first home football game of the season or else they'd get a nasty "alternate assignment." They not only had to sit where they were told, but play when told. They were giving up their precious Saturday afternoons sitting inside watching TV to be outside on a glorious early fall afternoon cheering for their team.

I bet myself that I would get fifteen kids, tops. Twenty-five showed up. I bet myself that they would be unruly and wouldn't watch or pay any attention to me. I was wrong. I bet myself that none of the girls playing drums would want to play their drums with people all around them watching. I was mistaken. I made all these bets with myself so no matter what happened I could either celebrate or console myself with chocolate chip cookies. Luckily, it was a celebration.

To be quite fair, they exceeded my expectations. Which were low in the first place, but still.

In our little town, going to the football games is a big deal. People turn out and cheer their hearts out. The guys on the team are treated affectionately by the adults in the community. It's a place to go and see and be seen, to stand around cheering but also texting on your cell phone and laughing with your friends. Kids run around eating enormous pixie stix and nachos and babysitting their little brothers and sisters while their parents talk to one another. It's a place to greet people you don't normally see. Even though I don't know a whole lot of people because I've been in the community as a teacher for only two years, it felt to me like I did know an awful lot of the people there--fellow teachers, parents, graduated students, and current students.

It's hard not to compare it to my own high school band experience, no matter how hard I try. The bleachers hold about 200 people, tops. You can barely hear the announcer over the loudspeaker. This year, we have about seventeen guys out for football, some of them ineligible due to bad grades, and a couple of coaches, so the sideline was a bit sparse. In my high school, we had 200 kids in the band. Thousands of people attended the games and the teams were as big as college teams. Some of the schools we played against had bands as large as ours, not all, of course, and you'd battle across the distance. And then there was the halftime show.

My kids did pretty well. The trombones tried hard, 7th graders all, playing left-handed because I taught them wrong. My three core clarinet players who show up every time, and who know the songs cold and even have some memorized. Unfortunately, the five trumpet players that showed decided they were just there for looks and didn't play a note all afternoon. We'll have to work on that.

Some things I could have done better for next time, and I will. But for now, I'm really satisfied with how it went and the fact that we got several compliments on being there, and playing the school song. I was excited that my drum players were excited and my little cymbal player, barely four feet tall, crashed the heck out of those things.

If I had to spend time at a school event, a gorgeous Saturday afternoon football game with a couple of dozen band kids is not too bad.