SAY DON'T GO || A Taylor Swift Story

02.

Pushing all thoughts of Taylor to the side, I turned to address the band. "Go get in parade block, y'all!" I yelled. "Line up in the main area of the floor. We'll march down the ramps to the floor level and then do pregame. After pregame, we're going right into our Taylor Swift show, and then we'll finish off with 'Wildcat Spirit.' Everyone got it?"

I heard a chorus of yesses in response. "Great. Section leaders, fill in everyone who doesn't know. Now get set quickly!"

I darted out the doorway of the box to the main area of the floor, standing at the front of the forming lines of band members as I tossed my mace back and forth between my hands. After all of the band members filed out of the box and found their spots in our block, Violet ran up to me, holding my shako and plume.

"You need this," she said. "Mace gloves first for pregame, and then we'll switch to conducting gloves. While we're conducting, no shako. Put it below your ladder. You know the drill."

"Thanks," I smiled, tucking my mace in the crook of my left elbow as I shoved a pair of starch white gloves into the shako, placing the hat onto my head and then sticking the plume through a small slit on the top. "Am I straight?"

"Chin up," Violet said, her fingers adjusting the strap on my chin. "Yep, you're good. You want to whistle here?"

"Sure," I said, placing the whistle in between my teeth once again and starting to count in my head. 1. 3. 1, 2, 3, 4. Looooooong, short short short short!

"Hut!" the band yelled in return, the audible ringing out through the echoing space.

"Simon, go!" Ms. Hart yelled to our center snare player, and he started tapping off a quiet cadence, just loud enough to be heard by the entire band as we started to march through the stadium and to the ramps.

"Zipper quickly!" Ms. Hart yelled. "There's not enough space for three or four people per row!"

"Mark time!" I called to Violet. "Wait for people to catch up!"

Violet gave me a quick nod, the two of us using our peripheral vision to keep track of how much of the band had rounded the curb enough to catch up. I nodded again to Violet, and the two of us started moving forward at a slow pace, making sure that none of the band members were falling too far behind as we made our way down the seemingly endless floors of the stadium. After we were sure that everyone was going to be able to stay in line with each other, Ms. Hart ran up ahead of Violet and me, making sure that no one would be in our way and giving us a bit of direction on how to navigate the stadium.

"Okay, so we're going to go down this hallway," she said, leading us off to an area of the stadium with the words 'RESTRICTED ACCESS' printed over the doorway. "When you get to a point where you're no longer walking on concrete and instead you're walking on turf, slow up. You don't want to march the band out to the field in the middle of the game."

Violet and I exchanged a laugh at Ms. Hart's comment, but we did as she told us to, stopping when we could see the sunlight from the actual stadium filtering through to the tunnel. I held up my mace as far as I could without scratching it on the concrete ceiling, a signal to Simon to end the cadence so we could begin to move around and get into position for our run-on.

"Okay!" Ms. Hart yelled, clapping her hands above her head. "Get into your four lines for pregame. DMs, you're going to run out first, do your thing, and then file into place. They'll announce your names to the stadium, so don't be surprised when you hear that. Then Simon, when you see Vallie and Violet get to the fifty, you'll signal to the drumline to start onto the field. As soon as they've made it to the fifty, the rest of the band will run out of the tunnel and to your spots. It's a little longer than our run-on at home, but I have no doubt that all of you will be able to do it."