With only a few short rehearsals before their first performance at the RBHS vs. Battle High School basketball game yesterday, the Bruin Basketball Pep Band made the most out of the short amount of time they had to prepare.
As the second annual volunteer pep band commenced, junior Jackson Dampier, a returning member, said he hopes this year will be as fun as the one prior, though with different people.
“There is actually a decrease in people who have returned, and a large portion of the new people are freshmen,” Dampier said. “This is most likely because they have scheduled two rehearsals and games during finals week, which conflicts with many upperclassmen studying plans.”
With a freshmen band class of 40 participating in the Emerald Regiment alone, pep band director Patrick Sullivan said the large number of freshman involved in the pep band is to be expected. Many of the pep band students, however, come from Emerald Regiment members wanting to get a taste of what they experienced in the fall as they played for the RBHS football team in the stands. Although For freshman Ellie Carver-Horner the push to do pep band mainly came from her older sister who participated last year. Nonetheless, Carver-Horner expects the experience to be different from football games.
“[Pep band] will have less people [than football] watching the game and less people playing in the band,” Carver-Horner said. “The setting will also be different, so I suppose that will change the feeling.”
Along with the game atmosphere itself, Sullivan said there are a few game rules in basketball that differ from football in terms of Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) rules. MSHSAA does not allow the pep band to play during gameplay or time outs, so it has to be before, during halftime, or after the game.
“[At football games] I’ve got a board and we’re trying to get one of the short tunes in real quick before they hike the ball,” Sullivan said. “What we run into for basketball is we have full arrangements we’ll get to play from the beginning to the end. If we were out in the football stands, likely if we were going to start a tune we usually play like ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ or ‘Uptown Funk,’ we could only play a few sections of it until we have to cut the band off.”
With a packet of full arrangements, the RBHS pep band will continue to play a wide range of recognizable songs from Bon Jovi to J. Geils Band. Though they will only occupy the stands for four of RBHS’s basketball games, the volunteers are prepared to dedicate their time and effort in order to cheer on Bruin basketball.
“I know that even though we only spent a small amount of time to put this together, our musicianship helps make us sound good,” Dampier said, “This is a unique experience most high schoolers say they cannot do. I’m thankful for the opportunity to play with some of my closest friends.”