Some of you might remember a few diatribes ago I went a bit of a controlled rant where I basically said that the music played before and during the games was tawdry, disgusting, awful, tasteless, classless, and just flat out unfriendly to the human ear. In the aftermath of that, I had a lot of agreement, but was asked what to do as an alternative, and I am so glad I was asked, because like the bankrupt corporation RadioShack used to say, “You’ve got questions, and We’ve got answers.

The East Texas A&M University Pride Marching Band has built itself up tremendously over the past 15 years. I remember the first time I saw our band, I was a Sophomore in college and it was 2006. I didn’t make any football games in 2005 but the band was small, even for a school that only had 9,000 students. It might have had 75 members, maybe 80. It hovered around that way for about 6-7 years until one of the best decisions that was ever made by then President Dan Jones was to push for a new music building with a new concert hall and the best of everything. The administration thought that just having a good marching band would be a pleasant side effect to putting more money into the music department that would produce more future music majors that would leave Commerce as teachers and postgraduates in musical pedagogy. After the new music building opened in 2011, it opened up a flood gates of great things for new music majors.

ET has never been known as a music school, it has always been a venerated college for Higher Education and Teacher Education, while Business disciplines were second and everything else was in a tie for last. However, the flow of new music students started coming in and the university choir, marching band, a new symphony band, and wind emsemble came to Commerce and starting to attract more and more students, both new and transfer to play in the school. The school was averaging over 125 members for about 7-8 years, then in 2021, the band broke the 200 member mark and this year had close to 250. If you have been going to the games over the past few years, you can hear the difference aside from seeing it.

Then in 2025, The University announced that President Rudin had secured the music department as no longer a department, but as it’s own college. This shows how far the school had come. When I graduated as an undergraduate in 2007, we had 4 schools, The College of Education and Human Services, The College of Business Administration, The College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School. A few years later the school split some schools and created some other colleges for a more focused approach for the students, so as of now, East Texas A&M is comprised of The College of Education and Human Services (Still the top college), The College of Business, The College of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts, The College of Science and Engineering, The College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources, The College of Innovation and Design, The Graduate School, and as of May 2025, The College of Music.

When it comes to the marching band, having hundreds of students with a powerful sound playing tunes from last month and 4 decades ago is truly a treat to listen to. The halftime show is no longer an afterthought and ill tell you as an alum, it is a real treat to listen to the crowd roar when the band takes the field and performs some awesome maneuver and blast the fight song. These men and women work tremendously hard every day and week during the entire school year to provide not only a great gameday experience, but a great experience in the first class Finney Concert Hall, and all over the area.

I have seen the marching bands of the Southland Conference really the only 2 bands that I feel rival the Pride Marching Band is SFA’s and Lamar’s. UIW has a small band and you can tell pumps most of their money into athletics, and most of the bands in the conference are small in numbers and also pedestrian in quality. You can tell their fans don’t get as excited. We have a band that we can take into a major Division I stadium and show off, and I hope they at least make the trip to SMU this coming season and a trip to Grambling wouldn’t be that hard to make.

There are a couple of things that I hate to nitpick on, but I do hope they are looked at. First, the school will propably have to get involved to in this, but permanently changing the final line of the alma mater to “Hail, All Hail ET” as well as restoring the lyrics to the fight song, as having a fight son without any lyrics just makes no sense, plus not very “Division I.” Either way the growth and success of the Pride Marching Band and the School of Music is really something that has been a boost to the school and it’s growth, and sooner rather than later, the music will be an anodyne to the tough and challenging days the school has had, but in the mean time, Its all about making the band, and then MAKING a band.

A big, beautiful, band.