A Sea Of Red

I first realized this at VMI earlier, and was just reminded watching the OSU/Michigan game.

Do we have an alma mater? I know we don't play it at football games but I didn't know if we had a song that was our official alma mater.

Yes...Champions Arise by Dr John Hugo chair of the Department of Music and Humanities (he also wrote the fight song)

Ok, since the answer is yes I'm throwing out another one:

Why the heck do we not play it after games?

The alma mater? Im not sure...you can ask Dr Kerr that one too

It's sad that I even have to ask if we have an alma mater.


We definitely need to get people to work on teaching people the fight song and the alma mater and things like that. Then again, that was my idea for what a "Fire Drill" should be and we saw how well that worked.

SJ, i had no idea we had an alma mater either. we need to be singing that after the game, and the players too. SJ, go to dr. kerr in the spirit of improving the atmosphere, and not being pushy, and see if you can get some results. BJ, you should try to help too. you are a part of the band. just don't be defensive, no one is taking shots at the band...again it is in the spirit of making gameday better, and establishing traditons.

I make 3.

to be fair- its hard to establish "tradition" when you have a traditionally bad program. Get the students out like Barber did this year and this stuff will come. Keep winning and it will only get better.

Hope it carries over to the winter programs

SJ
Have you ever heard the rap song some student wrote called My Alma Mater when he was attending LU? You really need to get a copy if you haven't heard it. I know this is oiff topic but....

I haven't. Send it my way if you have it.

I would love nothing more than to have the entire student section put their arms around each other and sing the the alma mater together.

"Champions Arise" has been wedged in here and there over the years with varying success. No better time than the present to try again, though.

El Scorcho wrote:"Champions Arise" has been wedged in here and there over the years with varying success. No better time than the present to try again, though.

Doesn't the band pretty much shut it down, though, after halftime??

A.G. wrote:

El Scorcho wrote:"Champions Arise" has been wedged in here and there over the years with varying success. No better time than the present to try again, though.

Doesn't the band pretty much shut it down, though, after halftime??

For a bit. The front ensemble goes and packs up their stuff (since they wouldn't have much time elsewhere to be able to do it after the halftime performance), and the band gets about half the 3rd quarter to celebrate. It used to be the whole 3rd quarter but with the way things have been going he has been trying to get the band back in the stands sooner. Really the only time that you could do that would be at the end before playing the fight song (especially in the case of a victory)

Exactly. The perfect time to play it is after the game. Win or lose, you play the fight song after it.

Actually, one thing I've always loved that some schools do is after a loss, they play the fight song but they slow it down and make it a little less happy.

SuperJon wrote:Exactly. The perfect time to play it is after the game. Win or lose, you play the fight song after it.

alot of schools do that. i think it's a good idea. have the players stand infront of the student section and sing

The Eyes of Texas are upon you ...

I'll mention that to Dr Kerr. Im trying out for drum major next week so if I mnake it I will definitely mention some of this stuff to Dr Kerr.

Sly Fox wrote:The Eyes of Texas are upon you ...

just nauseating

...till Gabriel blows his horn.

The first time I heard our Alma Mater was when we had to sing it in graduation practice. Not a whole lot of emotions were evoked when we sang it the next day.

Some great ideas as far as the alma mater and fight song. I do have a concern about something mentioned earlier in the thread about the band taking half of the third quarter off....

One of the things that separates college football from all other levels of football is the atmosphere surrounding the game. A big part of that (maybe the biggest part) is the band. Having been to several college games at the division 1-a, 1-aa, 2 and 3 levels, I don't ever recall seeing the band not return to the stands immediately after halftime. I don't fully know the reasoning behind the break, but I would think that it probably takes away from the game atmosphere. Just my opinion.

that's a shared opinion of nearly everyone on here, even the former bandos or those too lazy to join the band (cough-SJ-cough) but also a point of contention with a certain young man

cue BJ - furious entrance, stage right


PS: always good to hear from ya, Mark!

my opinon: the band shouldn't take a break. period.

also: alma mater should be sung post game by all the students and players regardless of outcome. i know that it sucks to lose but I was kind of dissapointed that the fans only got thanked by the players and coaches after we won.

The band can take a break when the season is over, IMHO.

dwhite wrote:also: alma mater should be sung post game by all the students and players regardless of outcome. i know that it sucks to lose but I was kind of dissapointed that the fans only got thanked by the players and coaches after we won.

I know most people were probably watching OSU/UM on Sat, but did anybody see the end of the Army/Notre Dame game? The Army band played their Alma Mater while the team stood and sang. The ND players came and stood behind them in a show of respect. The favor was returned by Army while ND sang theirs. That was some sportsmanship you rarely see anymore. (Of course, it did help that ND had just crushed Army...so there weren't the hard feelings there would have been if it was a tight game.)