Published: November 25, 2009 09:54 pm      

Doing us proud

Beckley area graduates lend talent to WVU marching band

As Christopher McBride practiced with The Pride of West Virginia for the first time, the Beckley native found himself marching along with a band of nearly 400 members, 10 times bigger and 10 times louder than his Woodrow Wilson High School band.

As many Beckley area high school graduates have discovered, the scale of the WVU marching band requires more time than marching for their high schools, but it’s worth it.

’Marching on Mountaineer Field is an indescribable experience,’ McBride, a freshman clarinet player majoring in pharmacy, said. ’When we run on and hear the sound of 60,000 fans screaming for us, it makes me feel like I am part of something much larger than myself.’

The scale of the WVU band is even more noticeable among graduates of smaller schools.

’It’s a lot different because our section is bigger than my high school band,’ Ryanne Ball, an Oak Hill High School graduate, said.

A junior political science major who plays the piccolo, Ball admitted she still had not memorized the names of everyone in her section three months into the fall semester. In fact, it took less time to memorize new drills than it did to memorize other band members’ names.

But those new drills are what many band fans appreciate. Though the pre-game show is a proud Mountaineer tradition, rarely during the football season will fans see the same halftime performance more than once.

’The WVU band is like a well-oiled machine that is very efficient,’ McBride said.

Band practices can run two hours, four days a week, with five-hour early morning practices before home football games, McBride said.

The hours spent working for the WVU band can add up. Kristen Adams, a graduate of Independence High School, said her first weeks in Morgantown were devoted to band practices.

’I felt like I was never in my dorm room,’ said Adams, a freshman majoring in forensic chemistry who plays the mellophone.

Dedication to the band can, at times, interfere with the students’ academic work.

Joseph McVey, a junior alto saxophone player and Oak Hill graduate, once had to miss a business class exam in order to meet his WVU marching band obligations. He was allowed to make up the exam.

Ball puts many more hours out of the week into practicing and playing for the WVU band than she did for her high school band.

’We’re constantly going places and performing places,’ she said.

Although the time and obligations for the band take time out of classes, going to away games does have its benefits.

Ball recalled traveling to Phoenix during her freshman year to march at the Mountaineers’ 2008 Fiesta Bowl victory as one of her greatest experiences with the Pride of West Virginia.

As a lifelong Mountaineer football fan, Ball enjoyed playing in front of a section of Oklahoma fans and watching them leave their seats disappointed as the Mountaineers continued to lead the game by the fourth quarter.

Younger players’ first experiences traveling to an away game with the band may have been this year’s trip to rainy Auburn, Ala. Poor field conditions not only kept the band from marching onto the field, they kept Adams from hitting the right note when water flooded the valves of her mellophone.

’There was so much water in the horn. There was just gurgle,’ Adams said.

But the weather did not dampen the pride. McBride said he was very proud of the band that night, even though they couldn’t march.

’We were there to support the team, and that’s what we did,’ he said.