#jimrome

Appropriate for the Jim Rome #marchonrome "situation."  A quote from an older column I wrote for Marching.com sharing my thoughts on if Marching Band is a sport or art. Hint: It's NOT both. Check out the full column:    http://marching.com/spotlight/13th-chair-trombone-player/sport-art-or-spart/

You know, I’m not that upset over the post he made. Yeah, it hurt at first but after sleeping on it and thinking about it, yeah it was out of line. All he did was say the things we hear our peers say to us all the time. I think the reason it got so out of control was because he’s an adult, whose somewhat famous, and he insulted other adults all the way down to kids/teenagers.

I’m a teenager so I can’t really speak for the ones older than me. I can speak for my age group though. Coming from a school that tells us on a day to day basis that we aren’t important, that the fine arts budget is constantly getting cut, that the sports teams are getting about 4 new uniforms for each sport every year, it hurts. And that’s already coming from adults and all of our peers. So we are already getting bullied by a lot of people. Especially my county. There are about 5 schools, almost every game night the roads are pretty clear, because they are supporting the players and watching the game. We work our ass off to march and perfect a 6-7 minute show on Friday nights during fall. Then we work our ass off AGAIN to perfect 2-3 songs, each with about 2-3 sheets of music for each song, so we can score a 1. We don’t get credit though. So what if we can spin a flag while counting and marching trying not to hit a band member or march with our instruments hoping we hit our dot and our band director will finally yell “WATER BREAK”. I live in Texas, and since I’ve been in marching band I’ve seen the clouds cover us about 4 times in a 3 year period. We don’t have shade and we march on blacktop. Our football and baseball and tennis people have some form of shade, can get water whenever they want, and can rest. In band, we stood at attention for 8 minutes my freshman year at practice. My sophomore year, we just took our places on the field, we stood at attention, horns and flags up, for 15 minutes waiting on a judge to come back from the bathroom. So we deserve so much credit than what we’re given.

Jim Rome was wrong for what he posted and he took it down. He also said sorry over twitter where it was all started at. But like one of the comments I read on there, drop a glass and it shatters. Then say sorry to it. The damage is already done. As a new broadcaster, whose apparently famous, and an adult, you’ve just shown to everyone that bullying band kids/people is okay and is the right thing to do. As a teenager whose pretty confident about myself, I didn’t take it to heart. But think about the ones who are starting band for the first time, or just entering highschool and in band. Freshman year is the most important year. It makes or breaks your reputation. So your posts, both of them, has just ruined someone’s confidence.

I would like to see, starting in the new football season of course, no band, highschool or college, go to a football game and play. See how much you need band after that.