Are
they crazy? Just take a look at what these people running LSU want to
band from LSU Tiger Stadium Saturday Night Football season. This is
truly hard to believe.
Stay tuned: LSU revisiting opposing band policy as ‘marching band world’ watches
Meanwhile, the college marching band world has its collective eyes on Baton Rouge, one long-time band director said.
Eddie Nunez, LSU’s deputy director of athletics, says athletic officials plan to meet with members of the school’s risk management team soon to devise a safer plan for the cramped sidelines, allowing the school to lift the policy - potentially ahead of this upcoming season.
“We’re still looking at this. This is still being assessed,” Nunez said. “This is not a dead decision.
This is something we’re actively looking at, going to be meeting with risk management again. We’re going to try to do what we can to make this work. If we can, we will try to make it work. We would love to continue the pageantry.”
Risk management officials recommended the school prohibit opposing bands from playing at halftime, a policy enacted last season and something that seeped out publicly last week. The move incited a wave of backlash toward the school from the tight-knit band community and college football fans.
“Everybody in the college marching band world knows about this,” said Steve Peterson, director of bands at Illinois, “and we’re watching very closely.”
In an interview over the weekend, Nunez reaffirmed the reasoning behind the policy – safety issues regarding LSU’s small sideline space. To prepare for their halftime show, the 200-plus members of the opposing band leave their seats in Tiger Stadium’s lower bowl about halfway through the second quarter and stand on the sideline.
Also at that time, LSU’s 300-plus member band, the football team, television cameras and equipment and other media members are on a sideline that’s shrunk over the years, Nunez said.
There have been incidents involving opposing band members, Nunez suggested, but he declined to reveal specifics.
“Risk (management officials) looked at this because of a couple of situations that have happened in the past, very close situations, things considered something we needed to keep our eye on,” he said.
“They asked us to look at this. If you remember, a year and a half ago, we went and added a fence behind our home team bench. It was part of this whole situation, trying to create a buffer.”
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