Basketball Band and the NCAA Women’s Tournament
This past Sunday I was invited to cheer on our Lady ‘Dores in the Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament as a member of the Spirit of Gold Basketball Pep Band. Basketball band is open to any member of the Spirit of Gold Marching Band. However, only the students that attend the most games during the regular season are invited to the SEC and/or NCAA tournaments. After playing my instrument (the saxophone, the best!) at a few matches, I was extended an invitation to this event.
- The saxophone section!
Playing in the Women’s NCAA Tournament marked the end of my Basketball band season. I enjoy football season, but I prefer Basketball band. First off, we get paid to play. There are a certain number of people on a contract, which guarantees them $20 at every game they are assigned to play. The remaining slots for those games are filled on a first come first serve basis. In addition to being paid, we were also fed meals from Chick-fil-A, Little Caesars, etc. I was even able to easily attend games that other Vandy students had to wait hours for. I really wanted to go to the Vandy- Kentucky game (one of the more popular matches… did I mention that the men’s team defeated them for the SEC title?!), so I simply played in the band. While I did attend a lot of the basketball matches, the amount of games you play at is completely up to you (given that you have not signed a contract, like me). This flexibility made it an enjoyable and manageable musical activity that I was able to fit into my hectic spring semester.
- Point guard Jasmine Lister while playing the MTSU Blue Raiders on Sunday March 11, 2012.
The tournament took place here in our very own Memorial Gym. Sunday’s match was an afternoon game against MTSU. I had brought some homework to work on during the game (don’t judge!), but naturally I only focused on the match. Our team was on fire! We finished the game strong with a 60- 46 win over the Blue Raiders. On Tuesday night we played the #2 team in the nation, Duke. While we didn’t win this match, it was a nice finish to the women’s basketball season (The Lady ‘Dores scored 80 points). Basketball at Vandy is over for now, but I am looking forward to cheering on both the men’s and women’s teams next year as a member of the Basketball band!