Stanford, Calif. — The summer between junior and senior year at Stanford is a time for ideas. College life is three-quarters of the way through, yet there are still so many unique and undiscovered opportunities on campus. With time running out, the pressure is on.
So when sailing co-captain Haley Kirk heard that a group of her friends from the Kappa Alpha Theta was planning on joining the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band for the Friday night football game against Washington State on Oct. 10, she jumped right in.
“I was really lucky I had that weekend off,” Kirk said. “I had been traveling the two weekends before, so I was really trying to do everything [on campus]. So I was like, ‘Yeah! Let’s do it!’”
So how do you join the band for a day?
Kirk reached out to Ellen Kettler, a Stanford student who is the current tenor saxophone section leader, and found out she was in for a full day. To sit with the band for the game, Kirk and her friends would need to attend a field rehearsal, do the band’s walk around campus, participate in the pregame and halftime shows and keep their energy up throughout it all.
Kirk and her group of seven friends arrived at the band shack at 11 a.m. on game day, picked up their instruments and went right to the field for field rehearsal where they learned their formations for the pregame and halftime shows.
“Haley and her friends were extremely helpful,” Kettler said. “They were very attentive. It’s a little confusing your first time, figuring out how to run a field show, and so I’d give them directions like ‘Follow me. Stand on these lines.’ And they were super into it, having lots of fun.”
In total, the rehearsal took about three hours, but it was the speed of the rehearsal that really took Kirk by surprise.
“They run fast!” Kirk said. “You’re sprinting from the end zone to your spot, you’re sprinting from here to here. And it was really hot that day.”
After rehearsal, it was almost time for the walk, when the band walks around campus playing music up until the game. Kirk kept getting high fives from many of the young kids in attendance with their families. One of Kirk’s friends kept track of how far they had walked throughout the day, and the walk was a big contributor to their total of 10 miles.
“We were so tired!” Kirk remembered. “Next time, for sure, tennis shoes are a requirement. I was wearing [loafers]. That was not the move!”
After the walk, it was time to enter Stanford Stadium for the game. Pregame created some of the best experiences for Kirk and her friends. They successfully completed their pregame show, were on the field for the national anthem when the paratroopers landed to deliver the footballs and helped form the tunnel for David Shaw and the team to run through.
Then it was time to head into the stands, where Kirk learned the most important band rule of the day: no sitting.
“The Band tries to keep the student section involved in the game,” Kettler said, “so having people that are ready to yell cheers, dance around and be really excited is super helpful.”
So with band members required to stand all game long, Kirk’s group kept plenty busy alternating between dancing to the music – while pretending to play their saxophones, of course – and cheering for the players on the field. They even had a favorite song, which earned its spot because the band members have to lean back and do funky dancing on the benches.
“We loved that one,” Kirk said. “We kept on wanting them to play it! It only played three times.”
After fighting through fatigue during the halftime show and second half, Kirk got her final reward of the evening: laying on the field with the band for the postgame fireworks show.
“We literally got to lay on the 50-yard line and watch the fireworks,” Kirk said. “It was a great show, and it was just neat. The music was playing, and I was laying next to [my friend], and she was like, ‘This is sick!’ And I was like, ‘This is sick!’”
And when the fireworks ended, Kirk’s work for the day was finally done. Kirk tried to go out and celebrate with her friends later that night, but she was too exhausted from a full day’s work. So Kirk proudly put her new band hat on the end of her bed, where it still sits, and got some well-earned sleep with one fewer item on her Stanford bucket list.
“It’s so nice of them to let people join for a day or longer if you want,” Kirk said. “We all wanted to do it because what other school can you do that at? I could not think of a school you could do that at. My parents both went to USC…and they were like, ‘What? You can join the band for a day? That’s awesome!’
“I keep telling everyone on my team [that they] should do it when they’re seniors,” Kirk added. “Every student should do it…I don’t know where else you could do this. It’s really special.”
