This is an open letter to all of those people who love marching band and are offended by Clay Travis. As most of you may know Clay Travis decided to tweet a not-so-nice opinion that college bands need to be taken out.
Dear Mr. Travis,
Your tweet about marching bands has made a lot of people very mad. I just wanted to take a moment to explain to you what marching band means not only to me, but to the thousands of fans who support the students in those college marching bands. When you take away the marching band you take away the heart and soul of your football team. While you may not see it that way, think about every time you've been to a college game. Every down, every touch down, and even loses are met with pride from the marching band. We play the fight song to rally our players, we play down's cheers to rally a dwindling student section, and most importantly we play our alma mater so that our players know we are proud of them for being a part of us. Band members are some of the biggest football fans out there who in most cases end up donating the biggest amount of money in the future. My band has weathered hurricanes, floods, and 4 A.M. call times to make sure our football players were supported. We are there when it is raining and cold and we are there when the weather is over one hundred degrees. We rehearse for sometimes up to 5-6 hours before we go to a game. That's 5-6 hours PRIOR to doing pep-rally's, playing for team walks, marching a pre-game show, playing every down and time out, marching half-time, and playing while fans exit the stadium. We choose to be a better influence for our football team. We choose to practice and perform for fans because our stadium wouldn't know what to do if we didn't march our pre-game show. Our football team would not have the greatest entrance in college football without us. Our choices to march and perform for our university are supported by every facet and every fan. Let us talk about one of the best examples. The Ohio State University Buckeye band. The most popular band in college marching. How do you think their fans would feel if all of a sudden you took them off the field? I can tell you that the whole state of Ohio and I would be knocking down doors of whomever it was that sent them home. Or how about the LSU Golden Tiger Band? We're talking about years and years of traditions that would be thrown away because you think they take up too much time. To the fans of Ohio State and LSU these bands are part of the expectation of every game. When you take away the marching band you pull the rug out from under every game day tradition. What would you do with this extra time? Fill the T.V. with commercials and BS? YOU ALREADY DO THAT! The SEC network is the only network that just recently decided to stream half-time shows online. Or, let's talk about what your implications about band means to me and other band members around the country? When you say that we need to "get rid of the damn bands" it hits me in the heart. I and so many other fantastic and talented students dedicate thousands of hours of effort to make sure our show is worth watching. We pour our hearts out on the field to express our love and support to music, to our university and to our team.
If you want us gone so badly then you'll have to drag us off of our field.
Good luck with that,
Signed the "damn bands".
