Band Geeks No More

Hot girl-on-girl action, retelling sexy exploits and watching coeds make out with sex toys...
...all while slaves run to refill your beer. Something from a big fraternity party? Nope.

It's the band.

And I don't mean some heavy metal megaband or a bling-sportin' hip hop star. I mean the wool suit wearin', tuba carryin' College Marching Band. In this instance, the one at the University of Wisconsin.

Now, like many of you, I feel shocked and amazed.

And cheated.

As a former band geek, I have to admit that the whole band bus thing was one big pit of raging hormones, but having the desire seemed to be much different than having the chance to act on it. Trust me. No matter how trained we were at our tonguing technique, it never seemed to impress the ladies. Especially when you were sporting a poor fitting military jacket and spats.

Has the marching band become cool? Apparently. It's so cool at UW that other athletic groups pay extra to ride in seperate buses. The only reason our football team ever wanted to ride seperate was because we were, you know, the band.

Of course, even with pledges, pranks and Floutist-Gone-Wild escapades, the band probably still won't get the respect it deserves. Sorry, but the world at large still thinks of marching bands as something to fill in the time while the team huddles up at half-time.

Band groupies (i.e. marching band alumni) insist it's a sport, but if the rest of the world felt that way the band wouldn't be wearing wool uniforms on hot Saturday afternoons. I mean, there's more high-tech equipment on your average football team than on Apollo astronauts, but the best the band gets is a new flavor of chapstick. Oh, and if it was really treated like a sport, you think it'd get covered somewhere on one of the eight ESPN channels.

Maybe that's what it is. Most college band members have four to six years of game days spent being ignored and ridiculed before they start their college experience. If you manage to make a love connection under the watchful eyes of high school band chaperones, the romance is over once the lights come on and you realize your hooking up with, well, someone from the band.

So you get to college, you get a little unsupervised power, and you unleash it -- in wild hedonistic ways.

The next time you see a band bus swaying back and forth in the parking lot, it could just be some pent up frustrations busting loose...or it could just be the tuba section walking up the aisle. Either way, it's not something you want to see.

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