My school's band is in trouble...again
 

O.K. my school (Stanford) played Brigham Young University (B.Y.U.) last Saturday, and it was actually a good game. That is, not counting halftime, when the band came on the field. Now, maybe a lot of you don't know about the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB for short), but here are a few facts:

We don't march.
We are very undiciplined.
We are extremely UN-P.C.
Musically, we suck (although we really have very talented musicians).
We laugh at bands like USC and all of the other precision bands.
As a undergraduate, it was fun to be different, but as an alum, it's now kind of embarassing.

The band changed back in the 1970's, after Stanford changed from the Stanford Indians to the Stanford Cardinal (the color, not the bird). Thay wanted to be "the world's largest rock-and-roll band", so they became very rowdy. I am sure that those of you old enough to remember have heard of "The Play"-stunts like that make it very hard to be a good fan (and also the fact that for the most part, we are NOT a football school-not like USC and others).

So anyway, the band comes out, and they do a halftime show making fun of the Mormons, with dancers wearing wedding veils, and making jokes about polygamy. This did not sit well with the BYU fans. We have done this before against Notre Dame, when we had a guy dressed as the Pope riding on the field in the "Popemobile", and believe me, people were not amused. Sometimes the skits can be funny (like USC being called the University of Spoiled Children), but more often, they are just barely on the line of being distasteful. With the traditional rivalries, it's fun because they make fun of us as well, but when it comes to the religious universites, then that's a problem, because they also have God on their side ;) .

Maybe we should stick with tennis, golf, swimming, and water polo...:D

I didn't know people from Stanford had the ability to be un-PC. There are easier ways to make fun of Catholics and Mormons, but geez.. this wasn't funny. This was just making fun of someone's religion. Kind of a low blow.

That being said, your marching band could eliminate some of the distasteful stuff and be a really kickass band. It's always nice to be something that's original. I always enjoy watching A&M when they come up here. Their band's precision drills were amazing.

I was there for 77-0 last year and if you're an A&M fan, you should know your band received a standing ovation from around 85,000 OU fans.

Being an original is a good thing though.

oopsie...taking on religion is not a good thing.

Sounds a lot like Rice's MOB (Mighty Owl Band). Some schools get really upset about some of the things they pull. They make fun of UT all the time when we play, but we laugh at them. We look forward to their halftime shows because we never know what they are going to do. It can be some pretty funny stuff.

HAHA - okay, I'm sorry its not really funny - but it kinda is, b/c some poor soul thought up this "great idea" and who does it?? - the band! :p

Stanford's band has some great stories

Okay, so I was looking for pics of the "pope mobile" -God, I'm going to hell for laughing at all of this- but, I found these.....

http://www.s-t.com/daily/10-97/10-17-97/band1.jpg

http://www.s-t.com/daily/10-97/10-17-97/band2.jpg

Eh...I find the Stanford band funny.

Everything from the uniforms, to the football game were the players went into the band, and how they're banned from an airline because they all got up and jumped on one side.

-Rudey

I think this is hilarious. It's sad when people take religion so seriously that they see no humor in anything surrounding it.

The First Amendment: Live it, learn it, love it.
 

This is pretty typical for the bands from "good schools," which often have the tendency to be really PC...except for the band. The Columbia Band (CUMB) has gotten a LOT of people upset in the past year...most notably when the Lions were playing Fordham, which is a Jesuit school:

“Fordham’s tuition is going down like an altar boy.”

This probably isn't going to change for a while. Most of the student bodies of the schools in question don't complain, and it would take more upset from the inside...and not just from a competing school.

That girl rocks.

I was just about to say this. :D

My favorite MOB routine was the Kamikaze Armadillo Death Squad. (For the non-Texans in the audience, armadillos have an annoying tendency to become speed bumps when they're dumb enough to hang out on a freeway. For a dinosaur that forgot to die, it's amazing they've lasted this long.)

As long as you're not poking fun of someone's religion or race - ie, or any stuff that would get a fraternity suspended, or anything someone has the right to call sacred - you can come up w/ some great offbeat stuff.

If all a group/band can do is reinforce religious stereotypes, then they're not as creative or even as good as they think.

-add

Meh, BFD. I've seen worse mocking elsewhere.

I love those select few who bring the "Sex before Marriage" signs whenever we play BYU.

Stone Cold Sober......................booooooo

The point with some of these organizations is that they're not supposed to be good in the way that the USC Marching Band or the Marching 100 are. They're supposed to be jerks.

Deleted because I really do not give a rat's ass about this topic as much as people think, or the snarks who still belong in highschool.

Quote away.....
:rolleyes:

Why do people who aren't Greek speak for Greeks so often?

-Rudey

Because being Greek is the best thing E-V-A-R when you're not in a fraternity or sorority. :(

As far as their antics, I don't think it's that deep. It's called school rivalries. What Stanford said about Marry 'em Young isn't anything compared to what goes down at the Harvard-Yale game. :(

You're suggesting someone be suspended for being insensative or jerks?

You seem awfully angry about this occurance.

Don't you know?

When a classically irreverent marching band makes fun of its rival...God kills a kitten.

Please, kt...think of the kittens.

If this was true there'd be no one on GC! I'm sure we've all been insensitive at some point in our life. I'm also sure we've all been a jerk at some point in our life. This band just likes to do it more often. :)

I'm Catholic and I thought the pope mobile was pretty funny.

Exactly. USC-UCLA games have a rivalry, so do Stanford-Cal, etc. This isn't anything new. Even Notre Dame, that big Catholic school over yonder, has some of the most vial and obnoxious fans ever.

Hey Munchkin doesn't your uncle's brother's first nephew's best friend belong to a GLO (I think she might be an alumni initiate but her mom was an honorary initiate so she's a legacy!!!)?

-Rudey

damn tree. ;)

Fight on for ol' SC!

I just remember when an Ivy League school was losing a football game to a school that is nowhere near Ivy league, the Ivy League fans started to cheer, "That's alright. That's okay. They're gonna work for us someday." Pretty freakin' funny. :p

I wish that I went to a school with a football team and a marching band.

My high school would do that at hockey games when the rough and tumble logging schools were kicking our asses. My personal favorite was when we played the all-boys school and we'd yell "Hey Marquette!" and then rather than do the we've got spirit cheer we'd just yell BEND OVER.

God... you're right.

Those who make light of religion shall certainly burn in hell.

Kitten killers.

Agreed.

People need to have a sense of humor.

I hate the way people go around looking for things to be offended by. Why not cure cancer instead?

UVA had a band like that, called the Pep Band. After poking fun at the stereotypes for West Virginia during a bowl game in December 2003, the gov of WV got on the phone (so to speak) to the pres of UVA. The Pep Band was un-invited from performing at games.

Now, UVA has a "donation" that funded a "proper" marching band, and the Pep Band plays in the parking lot.

It's a shame, because a lot of what these fun bands do are intended to be funny. It is unfortunate that they cross the line into non-funny.

They should take heed to not get in too much trouble, since being banned from playing isn't the best way to keep a band.

That being said, I like the Stanford Band, and as an alum I would send angry letters and make some not so plesant telephone calls to the University if they tried to tranform it into a real marching band or get rid of it. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other alumni who feel the same way.

Or go do something else, pick up a hobby or something along those lines. It's a marching band for pete's sakes! Also if you take yourself too seriously you'll never have fun.

there are some things i could literally make fun of all day - and if one of those just so happens to be someone's religion, eh, collateral damage

I find religion funny...it's so ritualistic and if you can't laugh it's going to be very un-fun. At least in my opinion. I guess that's my problem. :(