Game Day Traditions: Part One

Game day for the Penn State Blue Band is an experience like no other here at PSU.  Each Saturday is full of traditions that make game day as special as it is, and lucky for you, I've got the inside scoop on all of them!  There are so many that I need to take two weeks to cover this topic.

The first tradition I bring to you is the loved (by us) and hated (by you) "Wake Up East".  There are a few trumpet-only traditions, and this is one of them.  Before the early games (typically noon kick-offs only, but we did a later Wake Up East for the first game of the 2016 season, Kent State, since it was a 3:30 kick-off), all (or some) of the trumpet section gathers in the Hastings parking lot, typically around 5:30 am.  We then play various fight songs in front of East Halls as loudly as we can, followed by screaming "IT'S GAME DAY!" and the occasional "THERE ARE ONLY SEVEN HOURS UNTIL KICK-OFF AND YOU'RE STILL SLEEPING?"  It's among our favorite tradition, and is usually met with one of two things: enthusiastic cheering or lots of profanity.

Because we are in the 21st century, we can always count on our loving fans to turn to Twitter to express how grateful they were for our dedicated service.

Photos credit to Andrew Hill

The second game day tradition we have is game day stretches.  Grant it, we do these stretches every practice, but game day just wouldn't be the same without them.  We do various stretches and exercises that one might find in an elementary gym class, such as:

Jumping Jacks

Photo credit to Annemarie Mountz

Arm Circles

Photo credit to Annemarie Mountz

And Supermans

Photo credit to Annemarie Mountz

But, everyone's favorite part of the game day stretches is the massage line, or more commonly known by its verbal command, "close 'em in and rub 'em down".

Photo credit to Annemarie Mountz

That, and the fact that the stretches are lead by the drum major, Jimmy Frisbie.

Blue Band director Gregory Drane and drum major Jimmy Frisbie
Photo credit to Annemarie Mountz

The next game day tradition is the game day sub (or "hoagie", if you want to be wrong).  At the beginning of the season, each member of the PSUMBB chooses the kind of sub they want: turkey, ham, Italian, roast beef, or cheese.  Each game day, we get these subs after rehearsal.  It's essentially our saving grace and what gets us through those long 7 am rehearsals.

Photo credit to Annemarie Mountz

The most iconic part about the game day sub is that most of the time the kick-off is 3:30 or earlier, which means that we typically eat our game day subs between 9:30 am and 10:30 am.  Nothing like eating lunch when most people are just waking up.

The final game day tradition for this post I will be covering is the game day nap.  Waking up at ~5:30 am and practicing for an hour and a half is pretty exhasuting.  The main reason we practice so early before games is due to the fact that tailgaters like to use our practice field.  Because of our early practices, we have a lot of down time between the end of practice and the beginning of the game.  Thus, the game day nap.

Percussionists like to sleep on the shelves where their equipment usually stays

Photo credits to Annemarie Mountz

That's all the game day traditions I have for this week.  Check out my blog next Friday to learn about more game day traditions!

To view more of Annemarie Mountz's Blue Band photography, click here

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Rookie Cake Bake

I was originally going to make my first post about band camp (cue "this one time at band camp...").  But then, I thought about band camp.  And while it was fun and excruciating all at once, it's not really the most exciting thing to talk about.  So, we'll begin with a tried and true tradition of the Penn State Blue Band: the rookie cake bake.

If there's one thing that holds true across the board for band kids, it's that they like to eat.  Specifically, cake.  Every year at the last possible minute of the last possible rehearsal, the Vice President of the band tells the rookies that they are to bake a cake.  But, it's not just any cake.  The cake must be creative and have to do with some aspect of the band.  The cake would be judged and there would be a winner.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the trumpet section (my section) is the largest section in the band.  69 strong, we had an unusually large rookie class with a total of 28.  Still, that left 41 returnees to express just how important it was that we upheld the tradition of trumpet victory at the competition.  The section has had a grand history of cakes:

The rookie class of 2013, with a unique trumpet-in-case design

Photo credit to Nick Ramish

The rookie class of 2014, with a classic (but slightly overdone) "floating lions"
 formation, complete with post-band camp practice field divets and Blue Band Brake Tower (they didn't win, but we overlook that small detail)

Photo credit to Nick Ramish

The rookie class of 2015, with an excellent replica of the Blue Band hat, complete with marchers and musical notes

Photo credit to Nick Ramish

We had a lot to live up to.  Unfortunately, due to course obligations or just lack of interest, only six of the 28 rookies came to create the masterpiece: Elise Grovanz, Amy Winder, Rachel Neff, Josh Hackenberg, Zack Mothersbaugh, and me (Allison Ruman).  And the six of us worked hard.

We decided to go with a cake shaped like Beaver Stadium during the Stripe Out game, and on the field the band in the PSU form made during the playing of the alma mater each pregame performance.

We started out optimistic.  Blissfully unaware of the monstrous task that lay before us, we had a jolly old time mixing the icing (and building a tower out of the cans of icing)

Josh Hackenberg with the icing tower

Icing the cake to make it look like the football field

Rachel Neff and Zack Mothersbaugh with the icing

The cake looked good so far!  We were all pretty pleased with the work we'd done so far, considering we got a ruler out and did the calculations to make sure the cake was exactly to scale as the field.

L to R: Allison Ruman, Rachel Neff, Josh Hackenberg,

Amy Winder, Elise Grovanz, Zack Mothersbaugh

The easy part was over.  But, we didn't know that at the time. We thought the icing was pretty difficult in itself, but luckily, Rachel decorated cakes at her high school job, so even though it was a time consuming task, we were in good hands.

Then came the Rice Krispies to form the seats of Beaver Stadium.

Rookies with the half-finished cake, showing off "bag hands"

L to R: Elise Grovanz, Amy Winder, Zack Mothersbaugh, Rachel Neff

In the beginning of this stage, we still had some hope left in us.  Although baking the cake and icing it to look exactly like the PSU form, right down to the yardlines, was an arduous task, the field looked great.  The cake alone took around three to four hours, so we were already pretty tired.  Once we started working with the Rice Krispie Treats, however, we realized just what we had gotten ourselves into.

If you've never worked with Rice Krispie Treats before, don't.  They don't stand up on their own and they are impossible to form.  We had to fight with them just to get them to lay flat on the cake.  After the first layer of bleachers, our hope was fading.

Elise Grovanz, extremely stressed about the cake

At this point, we had been working on this cake for a good five or six hours.  The labor of the day got to us. We were starting to go a little crazy.

Elise Grovanz and I crying on Zack Mothersbaugh's kitchen floor

(I think I was crying because iTunes wasn't opening)
Video credit to Amy Winder

By the end of the day, we were absolutely spent.  We were tired.  We were physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.  Our eyes hurt from working in such detail on such a small scale.  Our hands hurt from trying to make the Rice Krispie Treats do anything.  But our cake looked great.

Finished (edible) 2016 Trumpet Rookie Cake

That night, Rachel went home and made the Jumbotron and box seats out of old cereal boxes, and the final product was truly breathtaking.

Complete 2016 Trumpet Rookie Cake

(disclaimer: 63 man hours is incorrect math. It was ~50)

Of course, we won the 2016 Rookie Cake Bake. We upheld the honor of the trumpet section.  Plus, a couple of memes came out of it.

Photo credit to Nick Ramish

All in all, the Rookie Cake Bake was an exhausting challenge, but we met it and eventually emerged victorious.  If nothing else, it was a great bonding experience for (six of) the rookies.  But I am praying for next year's rookies, because this challenge is not one to take lightly, and it is not optional.  It did a great job of preparing me for the stress of college, but I wouldn't wish that level of mental exhaustion upon my worst enemy.

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