This week was a really tough one for Baylor University, its students, and its faculty. At the beginning of the week, our Title IX coordinator quit, which renewed all of the Title IX drama that has been in the spotlight in recent months. On Wednesday, there were clowns spotted on campus, and a fake alert text was sent out to a lot of students telling them to evacuate all buildings on campus. Thursday afternoon, there was a shooting right off campus and the shooter fled towards campus causing us to go on lock-down. Since there were fake alerts sent out the day before, no one believed it was real at first. Lastly, and worst of all, a beloved student, David Grotberg, who was an Honors student, a trumpet player in the band, and the founder of the Ballroom Dancing Society, was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his bike on Thursday night. In times like this, when it seems like one thing after another is going wrong, it is extremely important to have a community to turn to, especially when most of the people in the Baylor community are hours away from their homes and families. For me, I found this sense of community in the form of the Baylor University Golden Wave Band, or as it is affectionately abbreviated BUGWB. The support and reaction for each other through these difficult times not only from BUGWB, but also from other university’s marching bands, has really shown me how incredible it is to be a part of a band family.

Being part of a marching band means that you spend a lot of time with the other people in that program. In high school, you have rehearsal most (if not all) school days, and you have football games and competitions most (if not all) weekends on top that. It’s honestly amazing if you find time to hang out with people outside of the band, including your family. In college, you might spend less time together with your band fam at rehearsals, but you are still around each other enough to be a core group in each other’s lives. For example, BUGWB practices Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for two hours each day, and on top of that we have pep rallies, parades, and football games. So while we might not be together every day like high school marching bands are, we’re together most days. Then, if you really love marching band, you can devote your whole summer to it, and join a drum corp. If you chose to do that, you’re basically with the same people for the entire summer, so it’s kind of impossible to not become part of a band fam. I say all of this to illustrate that when you decide to be a part of marching band, you’re basically choosing to be a part of a family away from your biological family. You share blood, sweat, and tears with this group- mostly sweat, but… anyway, these people really do become your family, the people you share everything with, and the people you go to when life gets rough.

Instead of having rehearsal on Friday, BUGWB met at Baylor’s football stadium, McClane Stadium, to pray together over the events of the past week, to remember David, and to just be present with one another. While this time was extremely draining and heartbreaking, it was nice to be a part of such a wonderful organization that was able to work through such a tremendous loss in this way. However, it was not just our immediate BUGWB family that was banding together during this time. (Forgive the pun- it was honestly unintended.) Throughout the day on Friday, three other university’s marching bands asked to pay tribute to David in their halftime shows this weekend. The University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma’s marching bands dedicated their shows to David at their Red River Showdown Game. Additionally, Oklahoma State University asked to play Baylor’s Alma Mater at their football game this weekend, and the trumpet section sported green and gold bandanas in the stands in honor of David. (There is a video of the Oklahoma State University Cowboy Marching Band playing “That Good Old Baylor Line” and a couple other pictures of the trumpet section wearing green and gold in honor of David are on their Facebook Page if you would like to see for yourself.)

The outpouring from these bands from other universities, some of which were from a completely different state, was so shocking and so incredible. It just showed that marching band is more than just a hobby or a fitness credit to fill a degree requirement- it is something that creates an unspoken bond between any person who has ever been involved in a marching program. This bond causes the loss of one band member to affect not only his/her band, but the whole band community.

While this week has been unspeakably sad, it has been incredible to be a part of such an amazing organization and to see the community’s outpouring of support in a time when David’s friends and family, as well as, BUGWB really needed it. Thank you God for creating marching band, for steering my path toward marching band, and for showing me and so many others what it means to be in a band family this week and every week.

God Bless and Sic ‘Em Bears!