Midland High School Marching Band

Chapter 4

It was finally the day of their first football game of the year. The Mud Pigs were leading their cross-town rivals, the Bulldogs 17-14 at the half. The biggest play of the day had been a 64-yard "scoop and score" fumble recovery right at the beginning of the second quarter by Jason Fortier.

The two teams always battled one another, and this game was a semi-final rematch from 2018 where the Mud Pigs won 36-35 on a two-point conversion with 0.8 seconds left on the clock. The Bulldogs were hungry for vengeance. That wasn't a concern to the Mud Pigs, however, because they easily took care of business in the first half of the football game. 17-14 was not an accurate representation of what the score should have been because the Mud Pigs were robbed of two first downs on 4th & inches that the running back, Brandon Marx, got two yards beyond the line of scrimmage, and it was ruled short.

As for the Mud Pigs' halftime show, the group proved their worth. There was certainly a reason that they were rated first in the state of Texas, where there were a lot of very good marching bands, but the Mud Pigs were number one, and this was true by far.

They were rated number four nationally behind Meadowbrook, VA, Baton Rouge, LA, and Miami, FL. The #5 rated band nationally was the Marching Moles of Hillsburg, MA. Meadowbrook, Midland, and Hillsburg were all rival marching bands with one another, and they would be competing in a show in Nashville, TN to determine the top rated marching bands across the United States. That would take place November 8th through the 12th. The national rankings would all come out of that one show for the top 50 bands. The next 22 could shift throughout the year between 51 and 72, and the final 28 would fluctuate among bands that did not necessarily participate in the show. These would vary based on average competition ratings, so long as the band had gone to five or more competitions. The rankings of 51-72 would follow the same standards.

During the third quarter, the band had a chance to go to the concession stands, and hang out with their non-band friends. During this time, Joe, Kierstan, Nate, Matthew, Andy, Tony, and Ryan got together and laughed while watching the game. They all opted to pick on Joe for screaming and yelling at the referees when a call seemed to be missed, particularly those that went against the Mud Pigs.

Fortunately, the Mud Pigs scored 3 touchdowns and allowed only a field goal in the third to take a 48-17 lead into the 4th quarter. This was the biggest blowout that the Midland rivals had seen since the Mud Pigs came into existence in 1989. The band was very excited because they wanted to be able to play the fight song as much as possible on touchdowns. It was simple, but they loved it, mainly because Mr. Sullivan had composed it himself. It also meant the team was doing well if they were playing it enough.

They managed to play it six more times. Two on each of the three 4th quarter touchdowns, as the Mud Pigs went on to run away with a 69-21 victory opening week. This was the biggest blowout in Texas Division I football since 1989 when the Mud Pigs defeated the Mathis Bullfrogs 71-16 in their inaugural season.

The marching band had an amazing time, once again being very excited about their team. They actually had a team to be excited about for a fifth straight year, and they were going to soak in every minute of it. The team had made four straight state championships, and they were showing no signs of letting up after the first game of the season. They had just beat the team that finished third in the state by 38 points. They were going to be the team to beat in 2019.

At marching band rehearsal the next day, the band watched the tape of their halftime show, and self-evaluated it. They were relatively happy with their performance, but, as musicians, they felt they could have done a lot better. Joe particularly noticed that he was off step by a quarter of a step for three measures in "Fireball", which bothered him to no end. He had always taken so much pride in his marching that it was annoying and embarrassing to mess something simple like that.