By Jennifer Peltz
Staff Writer
Posted July 5 2004
After accompanying Florida Atlantic University's football team through a dazzling season, the university's marching band looked likely to sit out this fall.
Administrators said they might bench the hastily launched, sparingly funded Marching Owls in order to bring them back beefier.
But some students and band directors were crestfallen, and the university now is talking about having the band perform in some capacity this fall.
"I want to try to see if there's interest and to see if there's something we can do that will be valuable to the football games and valuable to the students and ... the people in the stands," said FAU arts programs director George Sparks, who directed the band from its 2002 debut until he took the arts job last fall. The band went without a permanent director last year, but FAU intends to start looking for one this month and hire this year, said College of Arts & Letters Dean William Covino.
He and Sparks say that's a first step toward grander plans for the band, which started on a tight budget and a tighter deadline. Approved in midsummer 2002, the band was assembled in two months, borrowing high schools' tubas and donning Hawaiian shirts and khaki slacks instead of costlier band uniforms. Last year was still leaner, forcing the band to scrape by without some needed replacements for equipment and uniforms, according to FAU finance chief Kenneth Jessell.
An initial corps of 85 or more members fell to about 60, Sparks said. Still, the Marching Owls became a fixture for FAU's startlingly successful football team, which went to the Division I-AA playoffs in its third season last year.
But administrators suggested this spring it might be smarter to invest a year in planning than to spend another year on a shoestring.
Student musicians have opportunities to play in several other ensembles, and most marching band musicians do, according to Sparks. And the band's color guard and drum line train and perform beyond the football games, with the color guard delving into its own competitive season in winter and spring.
But the fall football outings are "good training ... [and] kind of keep you going," said sophomoreAshley Parenti, 18. She chose to attend FAU because of color guard director Shannon Berkstresser, who coached her at Olympic Heights High School in West Boca Raton.
It's not yet clear what form the band might take this fall. Sparks says he plans to consult band members and directors about what they might be willing, and able, to do.
"It's kind of music to my ears, thinking there still might be hope," Berkstresser said.
FAU plans to invite local high school marching bands to perform, as they did before the university started its own. And Sparks says he and other faculty members are researching what it would take to expand the band to 225 or more members over the next three years.
"[There is] no doubt in my mind that the university is committed to the marching band," he said. " ... We're not going away."
Jennifer Peltz can be reached at jpeltz@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6636.
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