by Emily Fetcho

This was originally posted in the Fall of 2003

It’s that familiar feeling. The tingle in the pit of your stomach, the roar of a cheering audience, the electricity throughout everyone around you. Even though most of the students involved in Fremd High School’s Summer Section Marching Band have performed for huge crowds before, it was as though none of us had set foot on a football field before.

Our journey to competition season began in the spring of 2003. Our director, Mr. Matt Moore, had begun the select group of marchers the year before, as an opportunity for musicians who wanted more of a challenge during halftime. This year, he had a new goal for us. We were going to be the first marching band in Fremd’s history to compete.

I have never seen such an excited and dedicated group of people as I saw during the week of August 11th. It was our first time coming together as a full unit, having practiced our show music individually all summer. We were also joined by our colorguard, made up of students from our JV Flag Drill Team. That first day we saw an animated video of our drill and only a few doubts passed through our minds.

These doubts were put to rest, however, after that first week of band camp. We worked through 100 degree plus heat to learn the first two of three musical movements in our show. With some after school practices we put together and polished our third movement and were soon ready to get out there and show off all our hard work.

The Lincolnway Invitational was our first competition ever. I’ll never forget the excited jitters on the faces of my peers as we stood ready to take the field. The show was the best we had ever performed it, thus far. Musically, we played the cleanest show we’d ever done and visually everything knit together. With our last horns down, the smiles of our drum majors and every performer on the field were uncontrollable. It was amazing to have an audience that appreciated us for what we were, a hard-working and talented marching band.

The results of our hard work have been most rewarding this season. We received a first place in Class AA at that competition and then a month later placed 2nd at the Prospect Invitational. While the rewards for all our hard work are great, we’ve come to realize that the numbers and scores can’t determine how you yourself feel about your own performance. It’s about leaving your best show on the field and regretting nothing when you’re done. And I think that’s the greatest lesson we’ve learned this season. To have pride in ourselves and to leave our mark. And we’ve done more than just leave a mark. We’ve left a chapter in the history our band and set the standard for a hopeful and exciting future.

– Many thanks to Emily and Mr. Matt Moore for sending us this article!!! Emily is a Junior at Fremd High School, and plays Mellophone/French Horn. Emily has also marched with Pioneer, a DCI Division I Corps. Comments about this article can be sent to ilmarching@ilmarching.cjb.net, and we will forward them to Emily.