“That is not a sport, Anisha,” my father said while giving me a look of confusion and concern.

After sampling field hockey, soccer, tennis and basketball, I found myself on the field as an obligation. Having grown up with a father who was naturally athletic and played every sport imaginable, there was an expectation that I, too, would be on a sports team. Not to mention, my sister was captain of her high school varsity field hockey team and when she graduated she went on to play for Swarthmore where she would be a captain too.

I wasn't sure how to tell my family, but I had always been enamored with the marching band's performances. During their pre-game and halftime shows during football games were when I felt most that I belonged there, wearing the blue outfit with the silver sash and a bucket shaped hat with an orange plume sticking out of the top of it. “You really want to wear that costume?” my mother asked in her lilting Indian accent. I gave her a big grin and squealed with excitement. And so, I signed up for marching band the very next week.

“Band, Atten-hut!” The yearlong season of marching band starts in July with a weeklong camp lead by our drum major, hired clinicians and our band director Mr. Hoffman. The ten-hour days were grueling and really tested both my mental and physical endurance. A mixture of sunblock and sweat would drip down my face as we marched around the track while performing the horn angle exercises that our clinicians taught us. Sometimes the combination of the two would get so slippery that it was hard to hold onto my saxophone while performing the routines we were instructed to execute. The amount of focus and precision required was something I had no clue about before joining the marching band.

As I rolled my feet from heel to toe during the after-school rehearsals, I heard "once more" well into the night as Mr. Hoffman drilled us through the eight steps in five yards warm-up exercises to maintain equal step sizes. Trying to step at exactly 22.5 inches (an 8 to 5) while running through my body alignment checklist, landing at my drill spots on the football field and hitting the note at the appropriate length all at the same time made it a small miracle when we stepped out on the field in unison.

After four years in the Eagle Regiment, I became a confident section leader and musician in the marching band. I am grateful for the skills I learned and the friendships I made along the way. Even though I wasn't on a traditional sports team, I found the camaraderie that I so desired within the marching band, and finally found where I belonged on the field.