Day 246 - Sept. 25
Listening to: Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Thought for the day: I ♥ my college peeps.

The Birth of the Beater-Waver Party

Warning: I am about to throw down some words that may sound Greek to you if you’ve never had anything to do with marching band.

I went to a marching band competition today. Obviously, I love going to competitions to see kids I adore perform. I also love going because I have so many dear friends involved in the activity and some of them I only get to see during marching band season.

I’ve talked about my college affiliation with the Loser, Loser, Loser (LLL) club before in the 365. The LLL club was comprised of Middle Tennessee State University Band of Blue colorguard members: we were all broke and had no idea if we’d ever make it out of college to establish a career. The LLL club spent a lot of time trying to convince the percussion section (Beaters) that they were a bunch of losers too and that we, the colorguard (Wavers), were a better section than them. We taunted them constantly and would occasionally give them the LLL salute (as seen in this photo). When I began college, the Beater-Waver rivalry was already intense and very comical. Two years prior, the Beaters decided they’d had enough of the Waver's provocation and challenged the group to a game of quarters to settle the matter of who was the better section. Thus, the Beater-Waver party was born. The Wavers even had shirts made every year for the event. One of my favorite shirts had the picture of a snare drum on it with a big red X through it. My first Beater-Waver party was the third-annual one. The MTSU Band of Blue still holds the Beater-Waver party some 27 years later. I don’t think today’s Band of Blue participants have a clue as to how the party was birthed……………but I’m glad I do.

You are looking at moi, Bo Brown, my colorguard instructor at MTSU, and Katherine Cox, one of the colorguard captains. I photo shopped Melissa into this photo because she was with us tonight, but not present for our official LLL photo session (no she was not there in a wedding dress….heee heee heee).