OT: Stanford's Band Banned for Road Trips
The Stanford band has always had a rogue reputation. It caught up to them. Harbaugh might have forgotten what it's like to have a REAL marching band supporting his team.
http://www.si.com/college-football/2015/05/15/stanford-cardinal-band-ro…
In comparison to what allegations there are about the ohio band, these look relatively minor. But unlike Stanford, ohio wont take any such actions for their transgressions.
"Violations included a tradition in which a band member was given an alcoholic concoction intended to make that individual vomit publicly; an annual trip in which some band members used illegal substances; and a band selection process in which individuals were asked a number of inappropriate questions on sexual matters"
It's #3 that got em. Can't be doing that stuff nowadays. Although, I would love to know what the questions were.
The other two are just par for the course for people in their late teens / early 20's.
You beat me to it.
Most over 30 probably did at least the same or worse when they were an undergrad.
As general rule as long as people and property don't get hurt and everyone has fun, I don't see the problem.
Oh noooooooooooooo -- a 19 year did shots (as 17 year old I bought pitchers at the Nectarine Ballroom)... someone smoked a joint (I never have but don't care who does)... someone passed out and got a sharpie penis on their forehead... BAN THEM ALL
/s
The list of offenses was rather benign. If the argument was that these activities were occurring while the LSJUMB was on a school related trip (i.e. at an away game), I wonder if the university investigated the activities of other groups on campus? I’m guessing that football players in the week leading up to bowl games are worse.
Shame on this organization for perpetuating rape culture! Ban them all!
Oh wait it's not a frat.
Nvm.
"Are you still a virgin?"...is first that comes to mind
They banned the band!?
Dave Brandon thinks the banned band needs their brand rebranded.
^ this is fantastic
You should be 100% branned for life.
Clearly one of the band members narced, which is borderline treeson.
do they not just have a marching band instead of some stand up skit with instruments? That is weird.
There are several univiersities that either still use or once used scatter bands, as I believe they call them, Stanford's being perhaps one of the longest-lived. I believe a few Ivy League schools have them, although whether those are the official bands of the teams or not is something I don't know exactly.
It does lead to moments of...
Most of the Ivy League schools (if not all of them) do the scatter band thing, though not all have the same level of irreverence as, say, a Stanford or a Rice. And to my knowledge, Rice is the only band out there that marches violins.
Which reminds me: Rice needs to get back on the home schedule, because the MOB's two trips to Michigan were pretty freaking fantastic. Never seen a visiting band get a reaction like that. And, of course, when they went to MSU a couple years later, the Sparty folks really didn't get the joke.
Growing up in Princeton, NJ I often went to PU football games JUST to watch the halftime shows. Their band was hysterical.
When I got to UM I longed for the Princeton U sense of humor. It was a change of pace to find that the game was a reason to go. Still loved the UM band style though.
I respect your opinion, 1974, but I think the Michigan band needs a certain level of pomp and precision to help restore tradition to the gameday experience. I think turning the MMB into a scatter band would be as appropriate as the Foo Fighters showing up and playing electroinca for their entire show.
a Michigan fan / alum, that's saying something.
This is why I love college football. Yeah, they're jackasses, but they are our jackasses.
I have a very different perspective on the Stanford Band. Their "tradition" of mocking other schools is actually an anti-tradition, and as Michigan fans, we shouldn't think this is cute or interesting. The Stanford band sucks -- they are not honorable.
This goes back a few decades. I have a unique perspective on this, having grown up in a family full of college football tradition (Irish), then attending another one for undergrad (UM), then going to Stanford for grad school. And uh... the Stanford band turned me off so much I stopped going to Stanford games.
My first and only Stanford football game was a home opener against Rodney Peete. I saw what the Stanford band "tradition" is -- mocking other schools. Specifically, that day, mocking the goose step, one of the most traditional of traditions in college football.
Here is where the Stanford band "tradition" came from. Stanford is filled with a bunch of rich, privileged, snotty, self-absorbed undergrads. They think they are better than everyone else. They ritually won every college sport no one cared about. But for decades, their school was utterly non-competitive in the two college sports everyone did care about. So what was their respose to that? Mock what you can't have. Mock the traditions of great college football programs -- USC, UCLA, etc. -- because, you know, it's mockable.
So this mock-tradition of the Stanford band has persisted over the years, even when JH made them not-suckish. It is NOT an honorable tradition.
I loudly mock the tOSU marching band when they dot the "i" - but I'm kind of a dick. In case anyone cares, I'm usually the drunk in your section saying something like "OHHHH, THEY DOT THE EYE. THIS IS AWSOME! WONDER WHO THEY'LL GET TO DOT THE EYE TODAY?"
I'm not sure why I do it. Sorry.
that i sit a few rows behind you to your left...don't sweat it.
back in my era, we had an idea for a Rocky Horror Halftime Show that was fairly well developed (can you picture Carl Grapentine as The Criminologist/Narrator?), but subsequently shot down by the University's Powers That Be; that and I think Eric Becher didn't want to risk losing his job.....
And yet the annual Salute to the School of Animal Husbandry remained a thing. A delightful, irreverent thing.
The main point here is not whether there are entitled types at Stanford--there are, and more than at UM--but rather the origins of the band's attitudes and antics.
The band exhibited Stanford's Ivy wannabe-ism when they copied the scatter bands of the Ivy League, Yale's in particular. Even in the 1970s they thought they were an Ivy League-caliber university, despite having a weaker case than they have today (based on their low-admit rate, average standardized scores, etc.).
Moreover, although wit was sometimes in evidence with the band at halftime, more often it was a joke at the other school's expense--like Cameron Crazies chanting that the opposition's grads would end up working for Duke grads.
Third, the band couldn't keep itself from pushing the envelope. More extreme was by definition better. They couldn't distinguish between cleverness freely expressed and license to offend everyone in the basest way possible. When I was there in law school, the band got suspended because members decided to take a leak on the field during halftime--as part of the "show."
Yes, there are great people at Stanford, but there are also plenty of individuals who are insufferable. (I know--I sat in the Stanford student section when UM visited in 1975.) As always, when too many of these types congregate in one place--on a football field at halftime, for example--they bring out the worst in each other and end up representing the university in about the worst way possible.
I do admit, though, that the UM band has always seemed most impressive when standing still and playing. The marching does bother me a bit--especially when there's a guest color guard on the field, jet fight flyovers, etc. But forced to choose between the two, I would go with Michigan tradition, if for no other reason than to defy the mocking birds of Silicon Valley.
My overwhelming experience is that despite incredible accomplishments most Stanford alumni are genuine and humble people. Just like at Michigan there are a bunch of entitled douches but those tend to be the people who are less confident in their abilities.
the Stanford band decided to get attention for being outlandish because they were never going to get any attention for being any good. So they are typical of any college students desperate for attention. Sometimes amusing, very often offensive and over the line, and best ignored unless you are yourself buzzed.
Seems to me this was a circle-the-wagons reaction to something egregiously bad, and they decided to ding the band with a lifetime achievement award instead of addressing what really happened... This is all stuff they've always pretty much done out in the open...
still hates Stanford because of their band at the '72 Rose Bowl. He played in the Michigan band at the time. He will still complain about Stanford's band goofing off.
My dad was in that band at the '72 Rose Bowl. Apparently the Stanford kids peed off an overpass as the MMB passed underneath after a rehearsal. Seemed like a bunch of goofs.
Which is really what makes all of this so amazing--it's like the university was surprised about this stuff.
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FUCK THEM
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