Ohio State band ready to expand trips to 4 games this season
Ohio State’s push to become the best football team in the land will play out near and far to a familiar soundtrack this fall.
The Best Damn Band in the Land is hitting the road.
Under the leadership of Elmore native Jon Waters, the 225-member OSU marching band will travel to four road games this year — a break from the formerly cash-strapped band’s one-trip-per-season past.
Ohio State band ready to expand trips to 4 games this season
Ohio State’s push to become the best football team in the land will play out near and far to a familiar soundtrack this fall.
The Best Damn Band in the Land is hitting the road.
Under the leadership of Elmore native Jon Waters, the 225-member OSU marching band will travel to four road games this year — a break from the formerly cash-strapped band’s one-trip-per-season past.
It is an unprecedented show of support made possible by a more-than-quadrupled financial commitment from the university and new fundraising events.
Monday at Stone Oak Country Club, golfers turned out for the Cheryl Jacobs Waters’ TBDBITL Invitational — an event to honor Waters’ late mother, a longtime Toledo educator, and fund scholarships for band members.
Waters directed about two dozen band members through the Buckeyes’ fight song and “Hang on Sloopy,” among other staples, then teed up as a ceremonial starter.
“It’s almost surreal to think that this is for our college band,” he said.
Waters, a Woodmore graduate who became the band’s ninth director in 136 years last fall, spoke repeatedly of a “new era.”
The all-brass and percussion band has long been deeply woven into the football experience at Ohio State, where fans cram shoulder-to-shoulder into St. John Arena for the Skull Session hours before kickoff and stand for the entire pregame show at Ohio Stadium. Last year, video of their ode to the evolution of video games at halftime of the Nebraska game generated more than 17 million hits on YouTube.
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