Grueling Tuneup Precedes Long March in Pasadena

HOMEWOOD, Ala. -- Under the watchful eye of a man in a red coat, 210 teenagers from this small town are preparing for a marching band’s toughest test.

On a field cut into a hillside, the Homewood High School Patriot Band practices turns. The exact dimensions of an intersection 2,000 miles away are painted on the grass. The heat and humidity are overwhelming, and two musicians faint.

“Hmm,” says the red coat, Tournament of Roses President Gary Thomas, putting his hand on one of the red, white and blue band uniforms.

“Wool,” he says, grimacing, thinking how hot one can get on a six-mile march through Pasadena.

Such visits by Thomas represent a crucial check on behalf of the world’s most-watched parade. In an event known for high-strung horses and highly engineered floats, the Rose Parade’s bands face the highest challenge.

Not all of the 5,000 teenagers who march play instruments -- but they all carry medical release forms.

Such precautions reflect the Rose Parade’s standing in band circles as the Mt. Everest of marches. It is so physically demanding that a behind-the-scenes transportation system shuttles dropouts to the finish line or to nearby hospitals.

Bands qualify only after a 10-month worldwide competition that divides the planet into 15 regions. Invitations go out 14 months ahead of the parade -- well before selection of floats or horses -- to allow bands time to brace themselves.

And there’s the cost. For a single band, the trip to Pasadena can be an investment of a half-million dollars.

All for an appearance before a worldwide TV audience that lasts no more than 30 seconds.

“There are so many moving parts, so many people involved for that payoff -- it’s one of the most difficult events a high school can attempt,” said Mike Grueninger, an Indianapolis tour operator whose company specializes in transporting bands to the Rose Parade.

The parade is so much work that, though float sponsors clamor to get into the parade, the tournament often finds itself in the position of recruiter -- if not supplicant -- when it comes to bands.

In recent years, American high schools have produced fewer bands as arts budgets have dwindled. Many bands have dropped parading in favor of concert competition. And major parades that once served as proving grounds for Rose Parade bands -- the Orange Bowl Parade in Miami, for example -- are no more.

Though hundreds of bands still apply, the country has a limited number of bands with the musical chops and organizational know-how to handle a Rose Parade gig. So, care and feeding of bands are vital. The visits by the red-coated president to every parade band helps them prepare for the trip. Thomas stays at least three days.

That’s longer, joked one teacher in Alabama, than the visit of the team that renewed Homewood High’s accreditation.

50,000 Miles in 140 Days

On their 41st wedding anniversary, Gary Thomas and his wife, Lieueen, arrived at LAX by 5:30 a.m.

Visiting bands is the duty of the president, and personal milestones must take a backseat. The Thomases took to the road Jan. 20. Their last band trip, to Hawaii, will be this month. All told, they will have logged 50,000 miles in 140 days.

“I have a very understanding boss,” said Thomas, who works full time as an assistant facilities director for an electronics company. “He said, ‘You can do this. The only thing I ask is that, when I ask for Rose Bowl tickets, you’ll get them for me.’ ”

Six hours and a plane change in Memphis later, the Thomases landed in Alabama. Homewood, population 25,043, greeted them like royalty.

They were put up at a local university in housing typically used by big donors. The mayor of Homewood -- located just outside Birmingham -- made a point of being at nearly every event they attended. Gary Thomas received an audience with the state’s most important official: Dennis Franchione, football coach at the University of Alabama.

As in most communities that send musicians to Pasadena, Homewood puts its band at the center of community life. The band director makes more than his counterpart at the University of Alabama. Six times in the last two decades, Homewood High has marched in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

“People here have been hungry to make a name for themselves,” said a former band director, Pat Morrow. “Band was a way to do that.”

In January 2001, Homewood’s current band director, Ron Pence, submitted an application for 2003, including letters of recommendation from Alabama’s governor and two U.S. senators. (Most successful parade applicants have the support of at least one member of Congress).

With his application, Pence entered Homewood in a highly structured competition. Six slots are reserved for perennial band participants: the Los Angeles Unified School District, the tournament’s own honor band, the Salvation Army, the Marine Corps and the bands from the universities that play in the Rose Bowl.

Seventeen slots remain.

Homewood will represent Region 8 of the U.S., which extends from the panhandle of Oklahoma through Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi to Florida. To maintain the parade’s all-American reputation, the music committee is charged with finding one parade band in each of the 13 regions. That can be hard. Region 6, which includes Kansas and Missouri, is a Dust Bowl for bands; it did not produce a candidate for 2003. To the south, Texas overflows with candidates.

“We could have a parade of just Texas bands,” said a former music chairman, Joe Delgatto.

In their search, tournament officials follow a manual that runs to 125 pages. Band directors should be experienced -- 20 years on the top is typical -- and the financial heft of a band boosters’ club is critical. Band units should have 175 or more members, at least 85% of whom should be playing instruments.

“You need a big sound to be in the Rose Parade, so we like to see a lot of brass,” said Bill Kobayashi, the music committee chairman. “And the fact is that it takes a lot of musicians to project a lot of sound.”Bands are selected each October by the music committee, although the president often makes suggestions. A band from the Dutch community of Pella, Iowa, was recruited for the 2003 parade as a nod to the Dutch heritage of Thomas’ wife.

Homewood, like other bands, received its invitation to the 2003 parade on Nov. 1, 2001. Music committee members were impressed with the band’s performance in the parade after President Bush’s inaugural; particularly noteworthy was the band’s dance line of Star-Spangled girls, who performed in leotards in the bitter January cold.

Raising Money

As soon as Homewood received its invitation, the avalanche began. Dozens of travel agents and hotels, desperate for business, deluged the school.

“Some events require the bands to work through a particular tour operator, but with the Rose Parade, the tournament leaves everything up to the band,” said Fred Waymack, part owner of Nashville-based International Travel, which won the bidding for the Homewood contract. “And with travel companies, you get some that know this game, and can tell you the size of a tuba case, and some who don’t.” A Rose Parade trip typically lasts a week. Air fare, meals and entertainment, plus six nights at a Marriott, add up. The Homewood band members will pay $1,287 each -- about average for a Rose Parade trip.

Much of the time the Thomases spend on the road is devoted to helping bands raise money. In Alabama, Thomas appeared on TV -- “Good Morning, Alabama!” -- to solicit support. He headlined a black-tie auction that raised $83,000. Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman served as a greeter.

“I’m here because it’s a very big deal in this state for a band to make the Rose Parade,” Siegelman said. “When people in Alabama talk about Homewood, the first thing they talk about is this band.”

Fund-raising techniques vary. Homewood kids also are selling fruit and coupon books.

In Attica, N.Y., band members built a cornfield maze (the crops resemble a rose from the air) and charged admission. At North Royalton High School in Ohio, fund-raising efforts were so high-profile that some parents worried they might undermine a ballot measure to raise the levy for other school needs.

“With fund-raising this extensive,” said Cathy Bican, a North Royalton trustee and band parent, “you have to be careful that other parts of the community don’t come to resent it.”

Survival Tips for Parade

During his Alabama visit, Gary Thomas met three times with Homewood band members, who applauded his entrance wildly each time and then listened reverently. Each time, he offered “parade survival” tips:

Wear form-fitting socks: Tube socks bunch up and cause blisters. Put on bicycle shorts underneath your uniforms, or the insides of your legs may end up chapped and bloody. The program may say 5 1/2miles, Thomas said, but with warmups, you’ll really walk seven.

At that, band members gasped. All the color left the face of the band’s dance instructor.

Pence merely nodded.

He had been preparing for the long march for some time. His preparation began in the spring, when Pence flew to Pasadena -- a “familiarization” visit that most band directors make -- to photograph the corner of Orange Grove and Colorado boulevards and videotape the entire route.

In a meeting with the music committee he learned that the parade demands continuous music. TV crews are instructed to cut away from bands that stop playing. Injuries are so common that, after crossing the finish line, each band director is handed a list of members who have dropped out or been hospitalized.

That’s why Homewood’s trumpet players were doing training runs. That’s why the band was adding more cushioning to its shoes. (Bands in Ohio and New York use the indoor facilities of the Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills so they can keep in shape in winter.)

Homewood also may tinker with its cadence to meet the Rose Parade’s demands of an exact 2-hour, 9-minute and 15-second march. Its drums have been decorated red. Instead of dividing instruments by sections, the band, like most others in the parade, will mix instruments to assure that TV microphones don’t hear too much brass at one time and too many woodwinds at another.

The most wrenching changes involve personnel.

Last spring, Pence asked a number of upperclassmen not to return. They didn’t take it seriously enough, said the drum major, Patrick Darby, and were staying just for the Pasadena trip. They have been replaced by a record class of 63 freshmen.

“It’s not the same band we had last year,” Pence said. “It’s hard to have so many new people, but it’s also refreshing. And you need a focused group to pull off something like this.”

An Impressive Preview

On Thomas’ final night in Alabama, he attends a preview for parents of the Homewood band’s new field show.

Pence is tense. The drum section needs work. The heat remains oppressive. But the music, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” is loud and dramatic.

Thomas is impressed. Homewood, he is sure, will be ready.

“It’s a long trip to the Tournament of Roses Parade, and it takes a tremendous amount of support,” he says through the PA system. “We come and visit all the bands. We think very highly of this band. This band could go up against anyone in the country, and would come out, if not on top, a very close second.”

Thomas grabs a large flag with the Tournament of Roses logo, shipped from California. He has repeated this ceremony in 13 states and two countries this year.

“For Jan. 1, 2003, the official invitation is here extended to the great state of Alabama and the Homewood High School Patriot Band,” he announces, the in-person confirmation of the letter Homewood received a year ago.

He hands the flag to the band’s two drum majors.

The band cheers, throwing hats in the air. A crowd of 500, gathered around this football field in the deep South, breaks into applause.

“Welcome,” Thomas booms, “to Pasadena!”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Bands in the Rose Parade

Where bands come from:

Region 1: Hawaii All State Band, Honolulu

Region 2: Mountain View High School, Vancouver, Wash.

Region 3: Davis High School, Kaysville, Utah

Region 4: Pella Community High School, Pella, Iowa;

South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota

Region 5: Westlake High School, Austin, Texas

Region 6: None

Region 7: Homestead High School, Fort Wayne, Ind.

Region 8: Homewood High School, Homewood, Alabama

Region 9: Lexington High School, Lexington, S.C.; Walton High School, Marietta, Ga.

Region 10: North Royalton High School, North Royalton, Ohio

Region 11: Attica Senior High School, Darien, N.Y.

Region 12: The Calgary Stampede Band, Calgary Alberta

Region 13: James Logan High School, Union City, Calif.; “Total Force” Band, Travis Air Force Base, Calif.

Region 14: Rancho Buena Vista High School, Vista, Calif.; Arcadia High School, Arcadia, Calif.

Region 15: Kosei High School All Shiga Band, Shiga, Japan (declined, citing travel costs and post-9/11 fears)