Athletics get more attention?

[Trombonium]

Anyone feel like athletics at their school get more attention than the band (including winter drumline, etc.)?

I certainly do.

[trittico]

Yeah, and rightfully so. Oklahoma is football.

[keyslinger]

at my school we are less funded than the cheerleaders

[fruple]

We actually don't count as a school activity for winter. Like, the only reason we got recognized at a pepfest last year (with like 4 sport teams) is because we were undefeated state champs and I think our director (who comes once a week to the school to tutor the percussionists) kept threatening them that he'd quit.

But yeah, we also got the yearbook yesterday.

Fall Danceline: 2 page spread
Winter Danceline: 2 page spread
All bands (3, but they forgot one), orchestras (3), choirs (4 or 5): 3 pages
Marching Band (state champs), Winter drumline (3rd), Winter Guard (2nd): 1 page, with terrible photos

I hate my school.

[hansel2011]

Okay, at our school band is the low end of the pole. Yea, it stinks but I guess ou kind of get used to it. Our school is football. Our town is whatever team goes farther. Like I already mentioned on another pole, softball just won disrticts tonight and is going to regionals. Does our school care? No. Does our town care? Yea. I will get randomly stopped in the store or something like that from people asking about me and the softball team. Softball is 28-1 and we dont get a pep rally. Football was 10-2 and they got a big one. But softball was on the news today. They came to our game and gave us a bunch of stuff.

So band gets a lot less. I guess we just have to show them how good we are and how great the music program is.

[Flutist Kes]

I would say that at both my high school and college sports are more talked about, but only because they are more public. Lets face it. Band gives maybe 4 or 5 concerts a year (more if you're competitive marching), and most are not "home" concerts. Sports, on the other hand, are more easily accessible- there are more, and there are more nearby. Plus at most band concerts (minus the competition stuff), you're not really trying to "beat" anyone... which kinda takes the edge off that sports have.

But that doesn't mean that sports are more important or anything. Infact, my high school band got major props last year throughout the school and the school board for getting the first I at States ever at my school... I guess it all just depends.

[carlaxbassoon]

We barely get recognized.


But are one of the "cleaner" group of people. See, one of our football players got in trouble for a DUI..got a freshmen and 2 seniors, and an alumni hurt. And our junior cheerleaders decided to get drunk for the St. Patty's...the coach realized that they were, and they had to take a breathalizer test, and they failed, and got kicked off the team.

So the marching band looks like angels. ^_^

[Brassman]

Yeah, this is a reoccuring problem for our school too.

[KUguardgrl13]

yeah, @ my high school no one pays attention to the band at football games because our shows are "boring". we're a competition band so our shows aren't meant to to entertain. they're designed to impress judges. not that i blame the spectators. it wouldn't matter if we did entertain because the football team has several state championship trophies and people only go to watch them anyway.

i think my college band is a little different. the ku band shows are designed to entertain, and there's a lot of tradition involving the band. people wouldn't know when to do the rockchalk chant if the band wasn't there!!

[hansel2011]

haha...at my school, yea the other sports get in trouble a lot...but people think that people in band have issues ever since the movue American Pie Presesnts Band Camp came out. Football players screw cheerleaders, basketball plaayers get arrested for doing drugs. We seem like the angels but most of the people are not. It is nasty but you know. We dont neccisarily do wrong things, people just think we are different becasue we are our own people. We dont care what other people think and we try to be oursleves and not what other people want us to be. If I was what my parents wanted me to be I would be going to college and majoring in medicine or something, training to become some famous doctor instead of going to college and majoring in music education, the thing I love more than anything in the world. It bugs me when people want you to be like them becaseu they might be too embarresed or something. Its just stupid. Sorry, I got off subject.

[spacermase]

We're viewed essentially as an extension of the Athletics Department, so we don't do too badly for ourselves. We seem to be well liked enough by the student body, although some of the alumni are still pissed off about the fall of the Pep Band. Recently, though, there's been a bit of reversal- we're getting a multi-million dollar band building (thanks in part to our absurdly wealthy benefactor, Hunter Smith). The football team's indoor practice facility, however, remains unfunded :-D

[hansel2011]

must be nice. i found out that our program might be getting cut. i already told my mom that if that does happen, i am moving to a different school. i could not stand to not have a band program. i would die without it. but i, along with many others are going to work as hard as we can to do something.

[Flutist Kes]

The band program is facing cuts at my old high school, too. It's not that it's band and there's no interest... it's just the economy. The high school band director is taking over every band (though part of it was that the middle school bd didn't know if she wanted to come back... she just had her first baby). But it's not just band- choir was on the block, as well as every freshmen sport, some jv, and "smaller" teams (ie soccer).