Basketball pep band is one of the longest standing traditions of Seymour High School’s band program, but a recent change in the scheduling of performances has left many students disenchanted with pep band. In previous years, band students were given the list of games and told to perform at 10 games of their choice. However, starting this year, the increasingly large band population has been split into three pep bands; the purple band, the white band, and the black band. All three bands are assigned to different games, and all students in the band are required to perform at the 7 games their band is assigned to.

The change was made in order to even out the size of the pep band game by game, especially with the number of students participating in band growing every year. The Seymour High School band consists of 240 students, with 80 being assigned to each of the three pep bands. This new system has both positive and negative effects on band students. A positive is the lower amount of required games, which has been lowered from 10 to 7. In addition, smaller games will now feature larger pep bands than before, which draws in more supporters to Seymour’s basketball team. However, the ability to choose what games you perform at being removed makes the process stressful for students with jobs and other responsibilities, as they now have to plan their schedule around pep band as opposed to having flexibility with when they perform.

In my opinion, the new schedule is beneficial to the band program in many ways. Playing less games is nice, and the new system encourages participation from students who possibly wouldn’t have attended any basketball games in the old system. The band is not the only group positively affected by the change in system, as attendees of basketball games are met with a large and lively pep band of many instrument groups, whereas some games last year would see very few students perform in the band. However, many band students are frustrated with the change. Senior Alejandro Perez Garcia stated “The new pep band schedule makes it harder to balance work and games when some jobs release their schedule only a week before some games, and others don’t let you call off at the last minute.”