When most people think about the dog days of August, they smell the fresh cut grass from the football field and hear the whistles that fill the air during the team’s grueling training camp practices.
When fall comes around, folks cannot wait to break out their sweaters and fill the bleachers on Friday nights to see if this year’s team has what it takes.
However, people fail to credit the group that plays the fight song when the team scores or gets the crowd up when they are taking the field, a group that dedicates similar hours during its summer vacation to perfecting its craft.
“When I went to football games before ninth grade, I noticed how the band was always a large part of the energy in the stands,” three-year Seneca band member Kevin Woytowich said.
The high school marching band is a very prideful group that also begins organized practices in June and has a two-week training camp each August that requires a great deal of application under the sweltering sun.
“Not many people realize they practice seven hours a day in the same heat the athletes practice during their summer band camp prior to the start of the school year. The sports teams get the bulk of the publicity, but did you realize that there are over 100 students who participate in the marching band? That’s one-tenth of the Seneca student body,” said Brett Hann, corresponding secretary for the band’s Parents Association.
The Seneca Eagles Band Parents Association is a 501©(3) public charity that provides financial and volunteer support to the high school band and color guard programs at Seneca.
The goal of the organization is to foster, enrich and support the students and the band directors by providing the necessary means to ensure the highest standard of excellence in the music programs.
The group was created in 2004 and has relied heavily on volunteers in an age of increased costs and decreased school budgets.
“Our organization is comprised of many dedicated parents and students who continue to be actively involved in our endeavors,” members of the organization said.
While the Golden Eagles Marching Band practices and competes in a similar fashion to sports teams, band director Keith Styers attempts to schedule practices and events to allow students to be a part of other clubs.
The team’s practice schedule slows when the school year begins, only getting together on Tuesday and Thursday nights typically for three-hour periods.
“Like most sports, we have our high scoring years and our low scoring years,” Styers said. “But for me, it’s about the journey and what the students learn as they go through the program.”
Seneca has had the largest per capita band in the Lenape district for the past several years.
LRHSD schools do not compete in the same group due to varying sizes of the bands. Of the schools, Seneca and Cherokee are the largest, competing at the 5A level. Shawnee is considered to be more experienced, but smaller in size and competes at 4 Open, and Lenape competes at 2 Open.
Each year, the Seneca Marching Band has had a diverse mix of students, taking the field with numerous honor students, athletes and thespians.
“The band always shows a high level of dedication with little to zero attrition from year to year,” Styers said.
The group performs at all varsity football games, six annual competitions — four in the district — and at parades in the community.
There can be as few as eight bands or as many as 50 bands at any given competition. Bands compete against other bands of similar size and experience and are judged and given a score based on their performance.
Unlike many other sports, the team cannot be carried by a dominant individual player; everyone in the band is responsible for its successes or failures during competitions.
“Everybody is involved in every performance. If one person is performing below average, the entire band is,” Woytowich said. “In sports, the coach can call a timeout if the players need to catch their breath or create a new strategy. In marching band, our band director can’t stop us in the middle of a competition or a performance. If we get tired, we need to continue to perform our best.
