WINGATE — As fun as Wingate football games are now, they’ll be even more of a spectacle next year.
Wingate University is marching into the on-field-entertainment space with the decision to form a marching band. A director of athletic bands will be hired over the next few months, and Wingate’s first band camp will take place in August 2024, in time for next fall’s football season.
“So much of this is about the game-day experience,” says Dr. Jessie Wright Martin, chair of the music department. “A lot of it’s about building traditions. That’s going to be a big part of it: finding somebody who has a vision for the University, for what the game day looks like. They’ll collaborate with Athletics, cheerleading and other student groups to strengthen the game-day experience.”
The University joins 10 other football-playing South Atlantic Conference schools in having a marching band.
Martin has already started recruiting locally, and the director of athletic bands will ramp that effort up in the new year. Scholarships will be available for band members.
Martin says the collegiate marching-band experience is quite different from high-school-level marching band. Instead of competitions, the band will play for games and other University events.
The Wingate marching band will give musicians a chance to continue something they love, even if they aren’t music majors. It also provides them with a built-in peer group as they transition to college.
“People who participate in band and choir in high school want to continue in college, because they love it and they can be with their people,” Martin says.
Trevor Helms, a junior majoring in communication and minoring in music, plays in the pep band as well as the chamber and wind ensembles. He marched with his trumpet on fall Friday nights for five years before college (including in eighth grade) and is excited to return to his marching-band roots.
“I really enjoy being part of the game-day atmosphere,” he says.
Movement, Helms says, is key to getting the crowd involved.
“They drummed this into our heads when I was in high school: People naturally pay attention to motion,” he says. “Whatever you’re doing that’s moving, whether it’s a small thing or the entire band marching across the field, it’s naturally going to command the attention of whoever’s watching.”
Marching band is a different type of musical experience for Wingate’s music department. Martin says that the Wind Ensemble is for serious musicians who are looking to hone their craft; marching band, she says, attracts good musicians who are more interested in creating the right atmosphere and getting people pumped up for the game.
“It’s a fun show, and that’s what it should be,” she says. “It’s entertainment, and it just adds to the party atmosphere.”
