Reluctant tubist becomes drum major
I guess the best place to start is at the beginning… Well maybe not the VERY beginning… So I have always been a little different… A little weird, an over thinker… a bit of a nerd. I never tried to be weird; I just was… the things that appealed to me… things I felt were normal, were just a bit askew to what was usually done… For instance, in high school, I had extremely long hair- If you knew of Kid N Play during their heyday then you understand what I mean when I say long hair. Then I dyed it…. Orange, Blonde, red… Turquoise. It is kind of commonplace now, but when I did it, it was in the early 1990’s. It wasn’t really that cool. I had stellar academics. I loved school. Hated homework, but I LOVED taking tests. I was on the football team- Until I tore the muscles in my stomach… I was on the wrestling team… eventually becoming a captain my junior year, I was on the track team. I was in the Choir… The advanced choir, I had some pipes back then, and I was in the band. Tuba. Yes, I was in the band and on the football team.
I was pretty terrible at football. I was much better in my head than I was in reality. Mostly because I really only gave about 82% in practice. That’s probably why I got hurt my sophomore year. I did some foolish things in practice. I returned punts one day. ONE! I was probably a freshman… (maybe I was a sophomore… nah, it works better if I am a freshman) and wanted to be noticed… In my mind I could show the coaches that I would be the best bet to return punts in the games. So we are working on special teams. Varsity Punting unit. Coach Says “Someone get back there and return these Punts.” That was my cue… So I take off before he finishes. This is going to be MY show. I can be a little impulsive from time to time. Not thinking things through…
So there I am… Freshman… Boom! The ball is Kicked up in the air… Huge hang time. I am watching the ball the whole time, just like I am supposed to do… It’s starting to come down and in my mind I am going to catch it and run this bad boy back. I don’t give a damn that it’s the starting varsity team. I am about to show how amazing I can be. I can see it, now I just have to make it a reality. The Ball comes down and lands in my arms perfectly. This is it! I look up and see Opposing team eyes right before I hear a loud CRACK. Maaaaan! Someone got hit hard! That’s gonna hurt whoever that fool was who caught the ball. All of the sudden I felt this excruciating pain. That’s when I realized that it was me who got cracked. And it was this second that I realized why no one wanted to return punts. This was a huge mistake. Cue: “It was at this moment… Steven knew…”
Fast forward to my sophomore year. I have gotten a bit smarter about where I volunteer to go in practice. It’s Defense day. I am playing outside linebacker at the time… well that is the position I am practicing. Technically the position I am supposed to learn on defense is the Defensive End. But me in my great wisdom, I decide to play it as an Outside linebacker. I never line up in the right place, I always miss my assignments because I am playing this made up position which I always put myself in the wrong place on the field. That is EXACTLY why I don’t start on varsity. I would have been a liability. I can only say this now because you know, Hindsight being 20/20 and all. So when we are practicing defense, I am typically on the offense playing either Fullback or Tailback… Because I played Fullback on offense- nope wasn’t good at that position either. My stats were pretty decent. I had about 4.5 yards per carry and 50% of the time I carried the ball I scored a touchdown… Sounds cool until you realize that I only carried the ball two times. One time it was a 4 yard run up the middle into the end zone. The other was a 5 yard run that was ONLY because the linemen did a great job of opening up the gap.
Back to practice- So this day I am doing my usual halfway practicing… Just giving about 75%. We are working on stopping the Power Off Tackle. Me as the fullback, I am supposed to get the ball and run between the tackle and the tight end. No problem. I have done this 1000 times in practice. I get the ball , it was a perfect handoff, I take 3 maybe four steps and the Defensive End hits me low which effectively stops my forward progress but I am still not down. Then one of the linebackers hits me high, which twists me and folds me backwards. The twist is what did it. The muscles in my stomach, my abdominus rectus, tear… and it HURTS. It’s like the torn muscle version of a cracked rib. EVERYTHING you do is painful. I finish the rest of the season doing as little as possible. Wrestling season comes and goes without any real pain to my stomach so I figure that I am healed.
Track season. I am all about the field events. After football and wrestling I was done with running. I do triple jump (my knees are cussing me out RIGHT NOW for doing that event) and I throw the discus. The discus requires building speed and power through rotation and torque. We can get into the physics of it later!! That’s right, you guessed it. I re-injured my tear throwing the discus. This injury is why I joined the marching band my junior year.
Toward the end of my junior year, I decide to try out for Drum Major… and I get it! That summer, my high school sends me to the George N. Parks Drum Major Academy. Completely Life changing. I learn how to conduct. I learn the coordination of cuing smoothly with one hand while conducting with the other. I learned how to conduct the Star Spangled Banner with its anacrusis, weird cutoffs and entrances. I learn how to spin, toss and catch a mace. The tosses ranged from eye level to roughly 50 feet above. I learn about DCI and the Cavaliers become my favorite corps. I learned the correct whistle to use- the Acme Thunderer. I learned how to run a rehearsal in case the band director needed to handle some other business. I learned all the calls to change directions. They covered everything you would need to know as a drum major. By the time Band Camp rolled around I was a fully realized drum major.
The first time that I realized that I wasn’t just a show piece or a metronome, was the first time I conducted during band camp. More specifically, it was when I cued the band to crescendo as we were holding the last chord… I Held with my right, and I raised my left… They got louder in proportion to the distance my left hand traveled. I was HOOKED. I had no Idea that this one moment would change the course of my life.
Because I was an athlete, I was too big for the drum major uniforms that my school already had. So they had to design one for me from scratch. I think I may have been the first drum major in my school’s history to NOT wear all white. I had white pants with a navy blue stripe and gold piping. I had a navy blue pirate shirt with some type of gold lame' fabric in the back and on the sleeves which opened and flashed while I conducted. My hat was the best! I had a white cavalier hat with this long navy blue plume. My uniform was sweet!
That year, we were invited to the University of Kentucky’s Band Day. We would be playing during Half time with the UK band. There were 4 other high schools invited and they gave each band a section to play one of their songs and then we would all play one song together. So in essence I was part of the Drum Major crew conducting 6 bands. All the High school bands playing complete, it was time for everyone to play one song. It was the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves overture. I love this piece to this day because of this experience.
The sound that came back at me was so big and so beautiful… it was Breathtaking! This was where I understood the power that music has to affect your emotions… because I was crying at the end. That piece was such an emotional roller coaster for me. Oh, and this was in front of 55,000 people.
For the final game, we played against our cross town rivals. We repeated what we did at the UK Band day with playing a Unified piece (it was the same Overture). But the real fire was in the 4th quarter. When we were playing in the stands. My Band Director called out “Durango”. Now if you played in a marching band in the late 80’s and early 90’s then you know Durango. I LOVED that piece!!! I am conducting it, giving everything I have and the band is playing better than they ever have before! It may be because we seniors know that this is the last song of our last year in marching band. This was going to be it! I cut the band off, and I am spent. I am literally about to pass out. I fall face first into the stands; exhausted. But this is the greatest feeling of exhaustion I had ever felt. Lying there, face down in the stands; crying and trying to catch my breath and take in the moment of what we just did. This is the moment when I decided that wherever I go to college next year, I will be in the band and I will eventually become Drum Major in college.
Where I went to school for undergrad, Kentucky State University, I no longer had any desire to be Drum Major… but that is a story for another time.
