For the last couple of years, the support from the football community has started spreading beyond the scheduled game days. This was most evident during the band’s pre-UIL competition on Sept. 30.
The pre-UIL competition is the marching band’s first competition of the season. It is hosted at Turner Stadium, which make it the perfect opportunity for organizations to show up and support. During the competition this year, the band saw an overwhelming amount of support from the football team and the Silver Stars. Both organizations stayed to continue to cheer on the band until they had finished loading up the truck.
The football team has not always been as involved as they are with the band though. Up until a couple years ago, this competition was not even on football coach Clayton Maple’s radar. When it was brought to his attention however, Maple knew it was something that his team would love to be a part of. In the end, the biggest reason it ended up working out was due to chance and having to rearrange their Saturday morning schedule.
“It was something new,” Maple said. “What a great way to just pause what we’re doing and go be a part of what the band is doing.”
Going to watch a performance has held a lasting impact on the band members, football players and the Silver Stars. It gives an opportunity for the band members to see the football players off the field and helps people see the dancers outside of being Silver Stars.
The Silver Stars have been supporting the band since the school was a freshman campus. The pre-UIL competition was something that head director Cyndi Vaughn wanted to support since she first heard about it. She views it as a way of giving back to the band for their help for the past 16 years during the Silver Stars halftime performances. The band plays the music each week that the Silver Stars dance to.
“I think that over all the years of the band playing our music, they have always been very open to what songs we want to do,” Vaughn said.
Head director Bre Osbourn has felt the support from these programs in ways that have been rare in her previous experience.
“Twenty years of teaching and I have only met a few programs that have been dedicated to creating good people as much as [the coaches] are dedicated to creating good athletes,” Osbourn said. “Teachers who focus on making good people make good athletes.”
Since the band’s pre-UIL competition, they have gone on to perform at two more competitions. The first being the Austin USBands competitions, where they placed 4th in their class. The second was the UIL competition that allowed them to advance to the Area competition on Oct. 28.
The leaders are confident that the support between the different organizations inside and out of the football games has led to a closer and more united campus.
Maple said that going to events like the pre-UIL competition helps show his program that “there are so many other things that make our school and our community and our culture so great.”
