A typical game day can be different for many people. Some of us spend the morning and a portion of the afternoon tailgating with friends and family, while some of us sleep until the last possible second. We start warming up almost two hours before the game starts, this means we try to get ready before warm-up even happens.

Color guard and Ballerinas, our dance team, have to get ready even earlier because they do hair and makeup, and they ALWAYS look great. The warm-up consists of little traditions within each section and then we move on to a full band warm-up. Our warm-up in full band is my favorite because we often sing Salvation and play Stars Fell and hearing all of the different parts and the traditional music is heartwarming.

Sydney Williams

Sydney Williams

When walking into the stadium, we move in packs, raising our section flags and laughing all the way there. As soon as we get into the stands we prepare for pregame and play all of our traditional music such as "Stars Fell", "Quilting Party" and "Rooster" to get the fans hyped up for the game and to showcase our Ballerinas as well as the JSU Cheer Leaders.

A fun tradition we have is chanting at someone who just happened to wear an orange shirt to the game that day, I'm not really sure where this came from, but it is so fun confusing the crowd until the person finally realizes we are chanting at them.

Sydney Williams

Cheering on our Gamecocks is an integral part of the game, we are a group of 500 after all so we make up a large portion of the sound at the games. We bring signs to shake at the players and have a good time with friends in our sections.

Before the 2nd quarter is over, we are already suited up and ready to take the field, for "The Moment You've All Been Waiting For," our half time show, which is usually a shortened version of our full show. For those who want to watch the full show, we sometimes do a post-game performance, but we always have recordings of our performances up for our fans to watch.

Saxophones participating in the military salute Sydney Williams

At the ending of every game, we sing "I'll Fly Away" with the football team, staff and cheerleaders. Seeing everyone linked up and singing at the top of our lungs is an emotional time, for me at least. At the end of the day when I'm still hot and sweaty, I think that there's no place I'd rather be, and no one I'd rather be with than my band family.

Sydney Williams