A DAY IN THE LIFE: Gotta have more cowbell
It was mid-way through the 2010 college basketball season when Kamari Hale came to the Spectrum with her friends, sitting next to a seat saved for her by the band. She can’t exactly remember when it happened, but at some point during the game a member of the drum line said they needed an extra person to help during the game. Excited at the thought, she leaped from her seat and sat with the drummers. The lead of the group handed her the cowbell.
“They needed someone who could just hit the bell to the beat, and I’ve been to every game ever since,” said Hale, a music education major from Blackfoot, Idaho.
Hale grew up with marching bands. Her parents drove the travel bus for Snake River High School when she was five and would let her tag along. She remembers interacting with the bands and watching them play on trips. She also remembers how she always wanted to learn an instrument and be a part of a marching band.
“It’s what I always wanted to do,” Hale said. “Since my personality is kind of loud, I got attracted to the loudest instrument and started playing drums.”
The 20-year-old sophomore was president of her high school band for three years, highlighting her drumming skills at talent shows, music competitions and pageants along the way. Impressed by the program in Logan, she made her way to USU where she plays symbols for the marching band. She also plays the cowbell — an instrument made comically famous by Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live” — for the basketball pep band. She is a member of Tau Beta Sigma, the national honorary band service sorority.
She said she loves every minute of the attention she gets on the big screen, obliging the crowd’s chants for “more cowbell.”
“I remember the first time I was put on the big screen in the Spectrum, and I thought ‘Oh, crap.’ I didn’t know what to do. Over time I tried to get into it, then the crowd would cheer me on, and I’d just go with it and start dancing. It’s always a lot of fun.”
Through her experience, the game-time routine is generally the same. The band usually reports to the practice field two hours before each game in full uniform. It runs through the half-time and pregame routines, at least once.
From there the band heads to the north stadium entrance. It is here they are lined up on standby to enter the field.
Finally, 19 minutes before the game starts — yes, exactly 19 minutes — the band director brings everyone to attention and leads the band onto the field to the full support of the crowd. When the band plays road games, it usually isn’t met with such a loving response as Hale noted from her experience at the BYU game.
“We didn’t wait for anyone, we just marched right in and were met with some angry glares,” she said, with a laugh.
Amid the practice, time, effort and unbalanced attention, Hale said playing in the band will always be one of her favorite things to do.
“I love band, it’s great,” she said. “Music inspires people, and it’s always been a part of my life. I want to keep inspiring people through music and always keep having fun. Being in band does all that pretty well.”
When not putting her hand to music, Hale said she also has a knack for landscaping. She took several classes in high school and placed first, three separate occasions, at the Idaho State Fair in landscape architecture. She said she’s considering making it an additional study at USU. She loves drawing and trying out new restaurants, citing Factory Pizzeria as one of her favorite local spots.
Whether it be through music, landscaping or sharing her “loud personality” with her friends, Hale grades a day in her life on what she enjoys most.
“I like having fun; that’s what matters most to me.”
Sometimes, she said, making that happen just takes more cowbell.
– steve.schwartzman@aggiemail.usu.edu