A disagreement between the football team and marching band turned ugly when the football coach lost his temper, yelling at students and shaking the drum major’s podium, at Annandale (Virginia) High School.
From an editorial by Megan Ryan, published in the A-Blast High School Newspaper, and the Annandale Patch:
At Halftime, all of the seniors were announced, the band started performing their show, “Music of the Night” with 7 minutes and 36 seconds left in the Halftime period. As they played their first song, the football coaches brought their football teams back on the field to start to warm up for second half. At first, the teams stayed in the end zone, however, that changed when the band began performing their second piece, when both football teams entered the field by going past the goal line in the direction of the performing band students…
Then the unspeakable happened. Coach Mike Scott and a few other coaches as well as some players began yelling at the band and Band Director, Adam Hilkert to “get the band off the field”. According to the game clock, we had about 4 minutes and 30 seconds left and halftime wasn’t over.
The screams from the fans and coaches became more intense, and Coach Scott resorted to his own measures by shaking the podium of Assistant Drum Major, Junior Douglas Nguyen, and then yelling at the other Assistant Drum Major, Senior Noah Wolfenstein, to stop conducting and get off the field. Yells came from the stands and the coaches to the press box and the field.
From there, reports differ as to whether the football team would have received a penalty, the prior knowledge of school staff about the conflict, and what kind of respect the band should have been shown regardless.
In happier news, the Marching Atoms recently won first place at the USBands Mid-Atlantic States Championships.
What do you think about this situation? Have you or your band ever had to deal with disagreements with the football team?
