Strike up the band: Columbia’s band should return to its football games
In its original form, the Ivy League had nothing to do with academics or selective admissions or billion-dollar endowments. It was the glue of sports, specifically football played by eight old schools in seven Northeast states, that held the gang together.
The Ivies canceled their 2020 season due to COVID, so today Columbia is hosting the first Ivy League game in New York City since the Lions were trounced 48-22 by Brown’s Bears before a far-from-capacity crowd of just 4,207 at Kraft Field/Wien Stadium/Baker Field in November 2019. Today also happens to be the first Columbia homecoming in two years, with the 2021 Lions a respectable 3-1.
But unique in the Ivy League, there won’t be a band to root on the home team when the Lions suit up against Penn. The visiting Quakers have a band, but it’s not traveling this season because of COVID. And the Columbia band is no more. With a long history of being pranksters and pests, it was banned early in 2019 with officials even confiscating contraband instruments in the stands like they were weapons. The band was then unbanned in time for the last homecoming. Last year, with no games, the band disbanded.
The university says that the city’s COVID vaccine and masking rules would silence all the trumpets and tubas and drums even if the band still existed, but that doesn’t make any sense since everyone on campus and everyone attending a game must be vaccinated — and the band, just like the football team, plays outside. The only face masks the football players wear are part of their helmets.
Why does all this matter? Because piped-in music on the public address system is a poor substitute to cheer on the third-oldest college team in the country, which is only averaging 3,600 home fans this year. Tickets for today’s homecoming game have a $5 premium above the regular prices. So someone’s into raising revenues, if not spirits.
