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FIRST U.VA. MARCHING BAND IN 40 YEARS TAKES THE FIELD

September 17, 2004 1:08 am

"I'm ready," the former James Monroe High School lineman nodded to fellow Cavaliers who snapped into formation to familiar drum beats signaling their entrance onto David Harrison field.

"Wahoo! Wahoo! Wahoo! UVA!" he shouted in unison with other members of the Cavalier Marching Band. They drilled from the tunnel to the goal line, then to the 50-yard line--to the deafening cheers of 62,000 football fans.

It was a history-making moment for the school that welcomed its first marching band in 40 years.

"I've had dreams of this for a long time," said Griffin, a stocky third-year history major.

"It's ironic that I had to join the marching band to feel that rush," he said later. "It was all I expected and more."

He clutched a U.Va.-furnished platinum trumpet that reflected his military-style blue uniform in the 80-degree sun.

Beneath Griffin's genteel, white-feather Cavalier hat, a contented grin spread across his face.

Tradition rules at Mr. Jefferson's university.

Freshmen are called "first years" and students walk the Grounds, not the campus.

A caped Cavalier mascot on horseback ushers in the football team before every game, and fans join arm-in-arm to sing "The Good Ol' Song" (a reworded version of "Auld Lang Syne") after every touchdown.

And for nearly 30 years, the helter-skelter Pep Band has scrambled onto the field and delivered raucous tunes and irreverent skits aimed at riling the opposing team.

Until last year.

The final straw came at the 2002 Continental Tire Bowl after a brazen spoof of West Virginia prompted the university's president and the state's governor to demand an apology.

U.Va. officials permanently banished the band from the field. They could still play at other school activities, but not athletics.

The following spring, longtime philanthropists Hunter and Carl Smith earmarked $1.5 million of a $22 million donation for the creation of a marching band.

Pep Band supporters cried foul. They liked the raffish, opponent-poking uniqueness of the student-led musicians.

By fall, former Western Michigan band director Bill Pease was tapped for the job of building a band. He's a Virginia native who directed the Kempsville High School Band in Virginia Beach. He spent six years directing the Western Michigan Marching Band but jumped at the chance to build a marching band in his home state.

"Sometimes it seems overwhelming," Pease said in February. He had to hire staff, order equipment and recruit band members from current students as well as those applying to the highly selective university.

"We have a list of 200 who want to join the band," he said. "The key is, can they get into U.Va.?"

Pease spent his first week on the job last winter painting over the graffiti left by the Pep Band in the band instrument storage room. He's heard about the controversy, but he doesn't get involved.

"We're not trying to replace the [pep] band," he said. "We're just trying to put together the same level of entertainment as the academics."

He scoured old U.Va. songbooks for nostalgic favorites students and alumni could identify. He ordered top-of-the-line platinum instruments and organized an impromptu "basketball band" to play for home games.

"It's all by word of mouth," Pease said early in the year. "It's a pebble that drops and gets bigger and bigger. We started out with 40 and we're already up to 60 within three weeks."

Reaction from the fans has been positive. But the reminder of a former tradition remained. A dozen or so members of the Pep Band, dressed in their blazing orange vests covered with booster pins, sat in silent protest across from the newly formed band during the basketball games.

Among them, was James Maxwell, a then-fourth-year student from Poquoson.

"A lot of people think we're opposed to the marching band," he said in February. "We're just fighting for our right to play at athletic events. It's an issue of student governance versus athletic dominance."

Pease hoped to field a marching band of 150 to 175 by mid-August when he would hold band camp, with the ultimate goal of 400 within a few years. He didn't have the luxury of choosing music education majors since the school doesn't offer that, he said.

The band would be made up of volunteers who love music and want to be part of this groundbreaking revival. They also get three academic credits for participating.

"I don't plan on ever cutting anyone," Pease said. "I think there are creative ways to let people do what they want. "

A contingent of 170 students moved their belongings into the English Inn a week before U.Va. classes began for the school's first band camp.

Nearly half were first-year students. The rest were spread among the returning students. A few attend neighboring Piedmont Virginia Community College that had been invited to participate. Most musicians had performed with their high school marching bands.

Ben DeForest and Kenton Griffin joined the basketball band last winter.

DeForest, who grew up in Spotsylvania County, is a second-year Echols Scholar who played saxophone with the Massaponax High School Band for four years.

Last year he performed with the university wind ensemble. He missed the energy of a marching band, but worried about the time practice would take out of his rigorous academic schedule. He joined the winter band to see how it meshed with his classes.

Unlike DeForest, Griffin never performed with a marching band. He played trumpet in sixth and seventh grades at Walker Grant Middle School in Fredericksburg, but traded music for a football and tackling duties at James Monroe High School.

He didn't think much of the marching band back then. He never figured it matched the exhilaration he felt blocking an opponent on the football field. But last winter, when word spread about the basketball band, the former athlete took up his trumpet to perform in the stands.

"It sounded interesting," Griffin said. "I like basketball and it seemed kind of fun."

Griffin worried that he wouldn't be able to keep up with the accomplished musicians who had music and marching experience. Pease eased his fears.

"I was obviously a little rusty and pretty much had to learn everything over again, but he believed in me, and my playing skills came back."

DeForest, already an accomplished saxophone player, was selected to lead his section.

Other Spotsylvania students joined the preseason band camp, including Paul De on the trombone and Robert Hunter on the trumpet. Kyle Sefton joined the percussionists, and Jackie Ripollone, the color guard. Ryan Byrd, a freshmen at Piedmont Virginia Community College, plays tenor drums.

"I missed marching band," said Sefton, a second-year student who performed with the Chancellor High School marching band. "It's going to be a little bit hectic. It's a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun."

They took to the field by 9 a.m. every morning for a week. They learned formations and sharpened their timing. They practiced holding their instruments at set angles while marching and playing in sync. They rehearsed stanzas of songs over and over and over, together in the park near the law school with Pease overseeing from a scaffold, and separately in instrument sections.

By the fourth day, they donned their casual under-the-uniform attire--blue soccer shorts and white U.Va. shirts and orange ball caps--for their second rehearsal at Scott Stadium. Earlier in the week, they played for the football players. This night, they drilled in front of family and the media, practiced with the Cavalier and his new horse and performed for a small group of band donors, including Hunter and Carl Smith.

They invited the small audience to join them on the field to end the practice as they did each day--arm in arm, singing "The Good Ol' Song."

"It's going really fast," Sefton said about the camp. "In five days, we've squeezed in a whole high school preseason. It's high school kicked up a notch."

It's 8:30 a.m. Saturday--seven hours before the start of U.Va.'s season-opening football game.

The Cavalier Marching Band is already on the move.

They met at University Hall's "cage" for a team breakfast of orange juice and Fruit Loops, and picked up their Cavalier hats to wear with uniforms that had arrived several days earlier.

Griffin joked with several in the group who complained of missing out on sleep. He slept well, he told them. After three two-hour practices that week, the band performed the night before at Charlottesville's Downtown Mall. After that, Griffin watched football on TV.

He saw no need to get uptight about the day's performance. He had rehearsed the drills hundreds of times over the past three weeks. The music and the formations have been imprinted in his memory.

An hour later, the band took to the turf field outside of University Hall for one last rehearsal.

"Pre-game! Hustle! Hustle!" shouted Pease from the sidelines as the group stepped into position. "Check your spacing."

They practiced their entrance onto the field, and for the first time, their exit after pregame. They marched into a "Rotunda" formation that simulates the Jefferson-designed symbol of the university. They hummed "America the Beautiful" and held their instruments in play position as they marched into a "V" formation.

"My God, what key are you in," teased Pease. "You're great musicians but bad singers."

Later, Pease encouraged them to relax and enjoy this debut performance.

"It's been 40 years since there's been a marching band, and you guys have done one hell of a job," he said. "We're going to make mistakes, but more than anything, we're going to have fun."

After a lunch of chicken and soda, they stepped into their blue wool-blend jumpsuits and slipped on their matching jackets. The jackets are punctuated with an orange-and-white drape sewn across the chest and a dramatic orange cape over one shoulder.

They boarded buses for a pre-game performance at Carr's Hill, home of university President John Casteen.

Those gathered clapped to the U.Va. fight song and "Glory to Virginia," a variation of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The band marched from the athletic center on Alderman Road around the stadium through tailgating crowds. Stadium-bound fans cheered when they played a favorite Cavalier drinking song called "Rugby Road" and the U.Va. fight song.

Alan Roberts, a 1963 alumnus from Charlottesville, clapped and sang from the sidewalk.

"It's fantastic," he said as they passed by. "It's hard to believe these kids have only been practicing three weeks."

Nearby, about 10 Pep Band members in their bright orange vests stood along the sidelines.

They cheered the band who replaced them on the field.

By halftime of the Sept. 11 season opener, the Cavalier Marching Band became adept at playing "The Good Ol' Song" after each touchdown. The Cavaliers already had a 35 to 10 lead, one that would surge to 56-24 by the game's end.

The band stepped onto the field from the sidelines to cheers of the crowd and played Big Band selections dedicated to donors Carl and Hunter Smith. They awed the fans as they lined up in "V" formation to play a 9/11 tribute of "America the Beautiful" as Fairfax County firefighters--who rescued victims from the Pentagon three years ago--unfurled a giant American flag. Chants of "USA, USA" echoed through the crowd.

On the band's return to the student stands, fans shouted, "Way to go Cavaliers." Several greeted them with high fives.

"They're amazing," said Colin Grimes, a high school senior from Long Island.

He and his father came to the season opener just to see the band. He's a percussionist who hopes to join it next year as a first-year student.

"They don't sound like a first-year band," he said.

Band members beamed at the attention, then raised their instruments for yet another first down.

They've got another half to go and five more home games. Already, they feel welcome in U.Va. tradition.

"To know that we are now a cherished part of that spontaneous revelry and cheer that comes to the Grounds on Saturday afternoons," said DeForest later, "that we're a part of the glad conversations that glut corner restaurants after games, that we lead the whole University in 'The Good Ol' Song'--this is my great pride. "

The Cavalier Marching Band will play tomorrow at U.Va.'s 3 p.m. home game against the University of Akron.

To reach MARTY MORRISON: 540-374-5423 mmorrison@freelancestar.com