Meeting with Rick Costello on Student Fans

[tyrunner0097]

During the UIC tournament game at Klotsche, I met up with AD Rick Costello and asked for a meeting with him about possible ways to create a more solid organization among student fans.

He has readily said yes and will be setting up a meeting for me with him and Assistant AD for Marketing, Levar Ridgeway in the coming weeks.

Now, I don't know if anyone else has been able to have this type of meeting with Costello on not only drawing student fans to games but also creating much better organized chants and cheers. I dont know about anyone else, but it was annoying to see only 1/3rd of the student crowd at KC on Tuesday clapping along with the fight song and doing the cheers. While some were catching on, we definitely need to start making a solid student fan organization with support from the Athletic Department.

Now, I have a few ideas to present to Costello, the biggest one being a "pre-season student fan orientation", where new student fans will be taught many of the basics, such as the fight song and cheers that go with it, and getting to the games.

This would probably be done the week or even a few days before our usual single exhibition game and we can even use that game as practice teaching new student fans the cheers and claps, etc. Plus, also start to get going on pep rallies and such.

I am also suggesting better promoting, like having bigger fliers and posters set throughout campus and also through emails, like informing students of games days or weeks in advance instead of hours, allowing more potential student fans to plan ahead for games.

I will also be promoting to Costello PantherU and GoUWM.com as sites for these potential student fans to go to.

I will be thinking up other things to present to Rick to help make a much more solid student fan base, but if anyone else has any very good ideas, please bring them forth here and I will bring them to Costello.

Time to really get serious about building a solid student fan base to help build this program and this is the first step towards doing that.

[PantherU]

Costello is well aware of PantherU. He probably tires of the e-mails I send him. I also don't know what you would get from "promoting" the sites to him. I mean, go ahead - lord knows I could use the potential visitors and customers - but I don't know what your

The "Pre-season student fan orientation" isn't just an idea, it used to be done when Bruce Pearl was head coach. My freshman year nothing happened, and that 05-06 season had very few freshmen at games. I've drummed up the idea of bringing it back several times with different members of the AD to no avail. In fact, if you dig deep enough in this part of the forum, I believe there's a discussion about it.

I don't think the time would be right in the days leading up to the exhibition game. You want to catch them all when they're required to be there, so you want to do it during freshmen orientation.

Personally Tyler, I don't really feel this is something that you can do alone. I don't think you should be the one to take our ideas and "bring them to Costello." I think you need to defer to Keerin Pinch and Jose Matamoros, the leaders of the SBGC, but bug them about really organizing the students. And the student section shouldn't be the only thing that should be part of this "meeting." It should also concern the cheerleaders, whose chants they use are tired and have no followers, and they need to be part of big chants (Milwaukee---Panthers). It should also have a great deal to do with overhauling the pep band; before Donna Shalala and Pat Richter came in and lit the world on fire and made Madison into Wisconsin, there were few things the Badgers were doing right. One of them was Mike Leckrone and the Badger Band. We need to see what they did and find out how to replicate that success here. I don't mean copy songs or dances, I mean find out what makes the culture around the band so successful there. I know what it is, but that's for another time.

Keep an eye out for PantherU.com to run a story shortly after the season regarding my theoretical overhaul of the presentation at games. The things I just mentioned are a part of it and more.

[nohopspanther]

Jimmy, seriously leave the band out of it, they are already worlds better than any of the basketball and various pep bands under the direction of Leckrone. In fact, they're one of the best playing bands in the country because it consists of music majors exclusively. This serves two purposes in preparing them for teaching pep bands at the high school level and exposing them to literature and performance ideas. If you'd like the band to play a rotation of the same 10 songs with the newest being written in the early 1980's go ahead and ask for a Leckrone look-alike.

[tyrunner0097]

I will definitely bring up the SBGC, for sure.

And I am not going to try to do all these things that I am going to propose by myself, but I want to get the ball rolling on these ideas in some way.

If nothing else, he will at least have a student fan's perspective on what could improve the university's outlook on athletics.

Nothing wrong with just trying.

[PantherU]

Mar 1, 2012 13:54:57 GMT -6 nohopspanther said:

Jimmy, seriously leave the band out of it, they are already worlds better than any of the basketball and various pep bands under the direction of Leckrone. In fact, they're one of the best playing bands in the country because it consists of music majors exclusively. This serves two purposes in preparing them for teaching pep bands at the high school level and exposing them to literature and performance ideas. If you'd like the band to play a rotation of the same 10 songs with the newest being written in the early 1980's go ahead and ask for a Leckrone look-alike.

I would invite members of the pep band to come onto the board and talk about it. Several of them have expressed to me

I don't think the band needs to cut it down to 10 songs - I think cutting it down to 25 would be fine. They have about 55 songs now, but don't play a majority of them. A lot of the songs they do have are jock jams crap you hear from every band in the country.

The reason I brought up Madison's band isn't the sound - Milwaukee's band is superior in every musical measurement - but that everything about the Badger band is unique.

You've Said It All, Hot Time, If You Want to Be A Badger, Songs to Thee, and Forward Forever are songs that are not the Fight Song and Alma Mater of the university, yet they are entirely unique to the program.

I don't think our band should adopt those songs, obviously. What I do think is our band needs to flex the Peck Departmets music muscles and come up with original music that accomplishes the pride-building that the Badger Band does.

Our band is not perfect - if you took the aspects of what the Badger Band is great at and make it our own, then put it together with our superior musicians and everything that entails, you're talking about making the best pep band in the country.

Simple as that.

[Deleted]

"You've Said It All, Hot Time, If You Want to Be A Badger, Songs to Thee, and Forward Forever are songs that are not the Fight Song and Alma Mater of the university, yet they are entirely unique to the program."

BP,

Finding songs of this caliber will be incredibly difficult. These songs not only represent the university, but some also represent important historical eras in Wisconsin, whether soldiers marching off in WWI or political thought during the Progressive Era. Today, these songs are incredibly popular, but a few songs in their set list are already over 100 years old. Fans know every word to these songs because their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents sang some of these songs.

You can't keep comparing us to UW-Madison. Their traditions have been built over 100 years, and it wont happen here overnight. Have some patience. You cannot force tradition.

Besides, I think the band is great for our program. With more success, funding, and another 100 years of sports, we too may be able to field an enormous band with songs known in every home throughout the state.

-Freak

[nohopspanther]

Hot Time is played by about 20 different schools and is certainly not unique to Madison. The Bud song has copyright issues that the UW pays loads of money to perform. Those 55 tunes are in the book because no one reacts to even the school song, let alone would do choreography or singing for the other tunes. In a given season you'll hear only 25-30 songs at the most and even that is stretching it.

This has all been tried before under previous directors to build a tradition and took a major leap forward under Dr. Lundahl (Florida State, Indiana University) and continues with Prof. Corley ( U of South Carolina, UGA) who have brought traditional charts and chants from those major programs. Unfortunately when the student section doesn't give a damn, the band can't force them to. Look at Marquette, Wisconsin and most any other bands that are associated with teams that are winners and most of the stuff is tied to 50+ years of tradition.

[PowerCrazy]

You'd be surprised of how much of our pep band is not music majors. I think maybe one person in the entire low brass section is a music performance major and she didn't show up much. Brian graduated and he's a music ed major, so I suppose he counts too.

Our band does actually have one original song, Gangsta Suite, which was written by the Panther Band's own Brian Cooney

[mwu]

All right it's about time that I weigh in on this discussion. Epic Jimmy style lol....

1) If you read the board and are a student, thinking about becoming a student, or a parent of a potential student who plays an instrument, we want you!! The Panther Band is always looking for new enthusiastic people to add to the family. Trust me you'll be in good hands!

We, as opposed to other Universities in the state, require you (music major or not) to play in another ensemble (UBand, SymBand, Jazz, etc.) outside of Panther Band because it strengthens your understanding of music and your technical abilities. Thus making the Panther Band one of the finest Bands in the State and the best in the Horizon League.


2) The UW Marching Band is easily in the top 20 (if not 10) bands in the country. You don't get to that level over night, as has been stated by nohops and gof. Madison may only play 10 songs at a bball game but their book consists of 100s of tunes. I think Lecrone has written every Simon and Garfunkel song known to man for the band. The members are responsible for every song played during marching season (every halftime is different) for bball and hockey seasons. Funding is also huge, Madison has about a 80 year head start on us in that category.

Madison also has numbers, big numbers of instruments. it's easy to sound good when you have 5-10 tubas and 12-20 trombones at a bball game. They may have us in numbers, but we win for musicality.

My last point on Madison is that their band grew exponentially due to football. If you want to give the Panther Band a boost guess what would need to happen...


3) That being said can the Panther Band improve? Absolutely!
I've mentioned this many times before, if you have song suggestions etc. please post them in a Panther Band specific thread or PM me or PowerCrazy and I will be sure to pass them along. Keep in mind not all songs can be arranged/bought due to difficulty (too easy/too hard), trade mark, and/or instrumentation restrictions.


4) While we may be Sister Universities Madison and Milwaukee are vastly different music programs.
Madison is not nearly as prestigious (not saying they don't turn out excellent professionals) as MKE.

Several of our songs have been arranged by students or Mr. Corley. It just takes time.

Which leads me to...
Mr. Corley's responsibilities are large to say the least. He runs the University Band, Symphony Band, UWay (youth band & orchestra for kids under 14 from around SE WI, ie. you gotta be good), both theory and directing courses, and the Panther Band. What does Lecrone do? UW Marching Band, that's it, his life's work. he has all the time in the world to make new charts. Our Panther Band plays as good as it does via a tag team of Prof Corley and a Graduate Student Director (who changes every 2 years). I'd like to see Madison do that.


5) Panther Band is composed of...
Students from every school on campus. I (obvious to those on the board) majored in Architecture, but we have kids from Business, L&S, Engineering, PSoA, Nursing, Education, the list goes on and on. It depends on the year & graduations whether we have predominantly music performance/ED majors or everyone else.

nohops mentioned all the music kids who move on to great K-12 Careers (I know too many of them to count) but I wanted to share with you all that UWM is influencing music education on a national stage.

I already mentioned in the UIC thread about Nick Carlson and how he turned their Pep band program around, but also there's Scott Jones. Scott was one of our great Grad-student directors for 2 years and filled in as Assistant Director of Bands for a year. You may remember him from the infamous Bruce Benedict game vs UIC where we played the Imperial March after every sh*te call that guy made. He has now moved on to become the Assistant Director of Bands / Associate Director of Athletic Bands at the University of Georgia.

I won't even get into all of our talented performance majors who are playing at the international level.


Edit: I would argue that the Beer Barrel Polka is the best song suited to be an "alma mater" of sorts for Milwaukee. If the band were to play it more often, would you as fans/alumni approve of AND participate in, in lieu of playing yet another sappy alma mater type tune?

[PantherU]

I guess my point is this: yes it takes 50 years of tradition to build on things, but it has to start somewhere. No one 50 years from now is going to say "I remember singing along to these jock jams in 2012."

Get unique, then let people fall in.

I also think bringing back the freshman orientation pep rally is an important thing to do.

[mwu]

I agree on the freshmen meetings.

We've done "unique" and get mixed responses. Examples: theme from 2001 prior to the fight song when the boys run out, flop. You can Call Me Al, win. The tons of (20-30 second) short songs we've gone through over time.

Tell me what "unique" songs should the band be playing?

[DunneDeal]

All I have to say is, whatever kinda song UIC's band played, where they were singing was a catchy tune.

But their fight song sounds like it belongs on a 80's cartoon show.

[nohopspanther]

Mar 1, 2012 19:12:18 GMT -6 PowerCrazy said:

You'd be surprised of how much of our pep band is not music majors. I think maybe one person in the entire low brass section is a music performance major and she didn't show up much. Brian graduated and he's a music ed major, so I suppose he counts too.

Our band does actually have one original song, Gangsta Suite, which was written by the Panther Band's own Brian Cooney

It's in the rules for participation to qualify for the contract that you needed to be a music major. As the numbers have gone down the number of exceptions have gone up. The last year I participated all 30 full-time members and the 5 subs were all music majors and it made a world of difference. It would be nice to see the return to pushing the ensemble as a performance ensemble for music majors because the experience is definitely needed. (I am in a unique position having worked with two student teachers from the program this past fall, and the current students are definitely good enough.)

What does an ensemble of players at that level offer? The chance to learn new charts in a real big hurry as we actually did play through all 55 charts just for the fun of it. Soul Man and a couple stand-bys like Domino and Louie, Louie got the students going and have since been left for dead. Until someone hits on a song or 2 that current students react to and will have longevity, not much will change.

[PowerCrazy]

That's most definitively not a rule anymore, and I really hope that it doesn't become a rule because then I and most of the current band gets screwed over.

[royalty414]

Back to main topic...

I'm not trying to gloat, but I will say that there wasn't even going to be a fan bus to Valpo for the 2nd round of the tournament if I didn't push for student interest via the Jeter's Jungle twitter account. Costello did not believe that students were going to have enough interest to go. Luckily there were 30 students who made the trip on the free student bus. With four hours of constant tweeting at students, we were able to secure a bus because there was enough fan support. That, I think was a big start and something to build on for next year. Show him that with a big social media push, the Athletic Department should have an easier time trying to get in touch with students and draw interest much more quickly.