The University of Delaware
Marching Band

An important part of the pageantry of the Fightin' Blue Hens football experience is the University of Delaware Marching Band, a unit nearly 300 strong that entertains the more than 21,000 fans who pack Delaware Stadium for home games.

Leading the band, which includes musicians, a color guard and twirlers, is UD Band Director Heidi Sarver.

Even though she is in her ninth year at Delaware, Sarver said she still gets nervous before each home game, although not as nervous as many of the new band members.

"Each year, about one-third of the band is freshmen," she says. "When they walk up to the corner gate that first night game and see 21,000 people in the stands, they freeze. I look out and see about 100 people who are not playing. They are putting their instruments to their lips, but they are not making a sound. The crickets are louder than the band."

And that despite the fact that many of the members attended high schools in the region and grew up with Delaware football. "It's a lot different when you're on the field looking up," Sarver says.

By now, Sarver says, people know not to be around her on game day, particularly before the first game of the season. "The first game is always the roughest," she says. "You are thinking about all the things you forgot to tell the band, like what part of the Fight Song to play following touchdowns. It gets easier as the season goes on."

Sarver says she loves the football games. "The fans are great and very supportive of the Marching Band," she says. "We are encouraged that more and more fans are staying for the postgame show."

For the UD Marching Band, the season starts during band camp, nearly two weeks of intense and focused preparation when the days can last from 8 in the morning until 11 at night.

It continues through the football season with two-hour practices every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Generally, Sarver has about 300 students on the field, a figure that has held steady for the last five seasons. She finds band members by placing lots of calls during the summer and telling student musicians that "if they played and enjoyed high school band, they're certainly going to enjoy college band."

Part of that is because, in college, the band is a little more relaxed than some high school programs that constantly play at football games and also in competitive events, she says.

"The first and foremost thrust of a college band is to preserve the traditions of the school," Sarver says, and at Delaware, those include the Fight Song and the tuba serenade.

The UD Marching Band has four key goals, Sarver says, to generate enthusiasm for the football team, without which there would be no band; to entertain the audience; to provide excitement and entertainment for the students in the band; and to prepare music majors to be band directors in their own right.

Planning for halftime shows starts early, during the fall of the previous season, as Sarver consults with Assistant Director James Ancona and Visual Coordinator Donald Jenness.

She says they try to target specific blocks of alumni with the music. Last year, for instance, the band played music by Queen and Boston that was designed to appeal to UD graduates from the 1970s and 1980s.

"Something Happened," a recently released CD that includes UD songs from 1998-2000 live performances at the Bands of America Grand National Championships is now available for $15. Produced by Emphatic Music and Media, Ltd., the CD can be purchased online at [www.marchinglegends.com] or at the UD Marching Band office at 30 West Delaware Ave., Newark, Del.

There are a number of things Sarver says she hopes UD Marching Band members take away from the experience once they graduate.

"I hope they have learned to treat others with respect," she says. "I hope they learned that when they thought they couldn't do something, they were wrong. I hope we were able to get them out of their comfort zone, to try new things, and that it is OK to err before you get things right."

Also, she says she hopes the kids "had a great time and developed wonderful friendships."

Sarver says she is pleased to receive "so many invitations to band weddings." The first week of band camp she tells the freshmen that a certain number will meet their future spouses right then and there, often drawing laughs. Years later, however, the wedding invitations come, often with a handwritten note: "You were right!"

"I hope we have provided all the students with valuable life skills," she says. "We try to set things up so they work together to solve problems and overcome difficult situations. I hope they have learned to work together, and have learned that if they can work together in the rain, the mud and the snow, they can do it in the office and in the home."