MGHS Grad Dots the “I”

By Christo­pher Williams -

“O-H-I-O, Ohio” is all you can hear as mem­bers of The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity March­ing Band pre­pare for what many have deemed the three most gru­el­ing min­utes a band mem­ber will endure.

As the snare drums start the cadence and the sil­ver sea of brass start march­ing out of the tun­nel arm swings so pre­cise it looks robotic, all you see is more than 102,000 fans cheer­ing on “the best damn band in the land.”

Since 1937 the Ohio State Uni­ver­sity pre-game show has been the biggest col­lege tra­di­tion to date accord­ing to www.althonsports.com. Every home game, a senior sousa­phone player is hon­ored with the oppor­tu­nity to dot the “I” in the script Ohio. Many leg­ends have beamed with pride at the top of the “I” such as Jack Nick­laus and John Glenn. Kyle Gross­man, a for­mer band president/sousaphone player at Mount Gilead High School and senior at OSU major­ing in new media and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­ogy, will get his chance to walk in the steps of legends.

In the sum­mer of 2009, more than 50 sousa­phone play­ers from var­i­ous states gath­ered for audi­tions with only 28 spots avail­able. After audi­tions con­cluded, only nine new mem­bers had the priv­i­lege of suit­ing up in the OSUMB outfit.

Kyle made the band his first year audi­tion­ing but not as com­fort­ably as he may have liked to. Kyle qual­i­fied as an alter­nate. In order to earn a spot, one must show the direc­tors they can play and march the show bet­ter than the cur­rent spot holder in a challenge.

“I remem­ber I was extremely ner­vous lis­ten­ing to Dr. Woods read off the names for the other rows,” Kyle said. “I was orig­i­nally slot­ted to audi­tion for k-row. When he didn’t call my name in k-row my nerves were going crazy. When he got to L-13 and called my name I felt so relieved and excited all at the same time.”

Kyle missed earn­ing a spot for the first game of the year but won his chal­lenge to get the chance to march against the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Sept. 12, 2009 in front of 106,033 fans. At the time, this match was a record atten­dance for the Buckeyes.

The OSU ver­sus Cal­i­for­nia game will be the 22nd home game in which Kyle has marched. But this game has a whole new expe­ri­ence that every Ohio State fan wishes they could have. Kyle hand­picked this game to go down in his­tory: this moment will be his turn to dot the “I.”

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in such a rich tra­di­tion has its high moments but hard work is a key for success.

Being in the band adds a lot of hours on top of a nor­mal student’s sched­ule; 30 hours a week worth of prac­tice. Mem­bers of the band prac­tice two hours a day, five days a week. All band mem­bers report six hours before every game which can take four hours. Another 10 hours go into per­sonal mem­o­riza­tion each week and the horns do not stay so gleam­ing and shiny on their own.

“The time does not faze us,” Kyle said. “We know we have a rep­u­ta­tion and we know what we have to bring to the field every week. If we’re not bring­ing our ‘A’ game then we will put in longer hours in order to be the best we can be.”

Dur­ing pre-game, the band first forms a triple Block “O” for­ma­tion then slowly unwinds cross­ing between each band mem­ber to form the famous let­ters while play­ing Robert Planquette’s “Le Rég­i­ment de Sam­bre et Meuse.” The drum major leads the out­side “O” into a peel-off move­ment around the curves of the script, with each musi­cian never slow­ing down. Slowly the three blocks unfold into a long sin­gu­lar line that loops around, cre­at­ing the OSUMB’s sig­na­ture script: O-H-I-O.

Dur­ing prac­tice held on Sept. 10, Kyle took his place for the first time at the top of the script.

“There were a cou­ple of moments today, like stand­ing at the top of the ‘I’ that it hit me,” Kyle said. “I am not a fresh­man anymore–this is my time.”

With 16 mea­sures left in the song, the crowd’s cheer grows louder by the sec­ond. Two high-fives kick off the famous strut. The drum major stops and points dra­mat­i­cally to the post so many musi­cians have dreamt of stand­ing at. Kyle grabs the bill of his cap and raises it, show­ing his face to the whole crowd, and bows deeply to both sides of the stadium.

“I remem­ber look­ing up at the crowd and my heart just started pound­ing,” Kyle said. “My legs just started going, my adren­a­line was so high I didn’t have to think about it. Right before I bowed to the crowd I took off my hat and just screamed it was an amaz­ing feeling.”

The whole sta­dium rises to their feet, clap­ping and cheer­ing so loudly it’s almost deaf­en­ing to the ears for the one per­son stand­ing at the top of the “I.” In an instant, the crowd goes silent as a sound from the top of the “I” fills the sta­dium. Fans and the rest of the band begin to sing the “Buck­eye Bat­tle Cry” as Kyle per­forms the solo he has dreamed of play­ing in front of more than 100,000 peo­ple. Noth­ing pro­vides chills more than the solo per­for­mance of the sousa­phone player espe­cially from one who has put so many long hours at per­fect­ing his skills, stand­ing proud at the top of the script.

In the crowd, 11 mem­bers of Kyle’s fam­ily wear shirts designed by Kyle. Each “I” dot­ter designs shirts for friends and fam­ily to wear dur­ing the game and have as a mem­o­ra­bilia of the incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence. The shirts dis­play a half-goat half-human per­son with a sousa­phone draped on his shoul­der. The rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the goat per­son is an inside joke within the walls of Ohio sta­dium. On the back of the shirts are the two dates Kyle will dot the “I.”

“I am very excited to have my whole fam­ily at the game,” Kyle said. “They have always been so sup­port­ive of me my whole life. I am just really happy they get to share this moment with me.”

The emo­tions will never end. The mem­o­ries made are embed­ded in thou­sands of hearts. All the sweat and stress­ful days it took to get to the top of the script has been worth it. Sto­ries have been made and the expe­ri­ences gained on Sept. 15, 2012 will be saved in Kyle Gross­man and his fam­i­lies hearts forever.

“I can’t believe the reac­tion from the crowd it was amaz­ing,” Kyle said. “This oppor­tu­nity was amaz­ing. All the hard work put in and stress that it took to get here was well worth it. I just want to live this expe­ri­ence over and over.”

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Sep 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.