Syracuse, N.Y. — Holly McCoy walked into a Henninger High School auditorium at precisely 12:15 p.m. Tuesday and announced her presence to her prospective Syracuse City School District marching band with the words “Band ten hut.”
Only a handful of students knew to respond with the one acceptable response: “Pride.”
That word is both the nickname of the marching band and the most important characteristic that McCoy, the band’s director, wants to instill in her pupils.
“They have to have pride in what they’re doing. So it kind of accentuates that,” she said.
McCoy doesn’t know how to park her pep in neutral, so the lukewarm callback response left her unflustered. That’s OK, she told her recruits. Some of you don’t know what to say. You will soon.
Oh, indeed they will. That, and so many other things.
The warmup notes are over. The Pride is growing and getting ready to make some serious noise.
This week marked the start of the band’s first true preseason camp. Last year’s group was something of a pilot program, a way to test out enthusiasm for the implementation of a full program. They performed in exhibition mode, installing and refining the most basic elements of the sport.
The pool of city school students wanting more of a challenge was clearly deeper than even McCoy could have hoped. Her preseason roster tops 90 band members, almost triple the number who capped last year with a performance at the state marching band championships in the JMA Wireless Dome.
Much like last fall, the Pride will wrap up its 2024 season at the dome for the state showcase. But this time, there is no mulligan. The performers will be judged and scored competitively against other schools in the Large School III division.
“We’re building the plane as it goes,” McCoy said during a brief break mapping out her preseason strategy. “We’re ready to go. This is our first time showing the communities around us who we are and that we’re building a program. I think no matter where we come from and where we land as far as scores, it’s not the scores that are important. It’s the experience that we’re going to push the most. Each week should be a growth. There will be a growth.”
That growth is obvious. The band’s support staff has leapt from two coaches last year to 13 this season. The Pride is awaiting new uniforms that won’t be ready until March, but until then the team will march in new alternate uniforms that replace the T-shirts that served to announce their identity last year.
The Pride’s evolution started to roll in the spring. McCoy visited many of the district’s schools, spreading information about what the program does and hoping to stir up some potential recruits.
“The kids don’t know us. And they’re looking at us like, ‘Ugh, what do they want?’” McCoy said of the initial reception. “And it went from that to, ‘Oh, OK. Oh, this sounds fun. Yeah, I’ll do this. Sign me up.’”
The Syracuse Pride marching band work hard to train for the New York State Field Band Conference
McCoy played clips of the band’s performance last year to illustrate a baseline of what lay ahead. That caught the eye of Niya Zane, who will be a seventh-grader in the fall. She thought color guard looked particularly intriguing, so she decided to come out for band this summer.
“I really like dancing and gymnastics and watching marching bands. I was like, ‘Oh, this is really cool,’” Zane said. “I think I’m really going to enjoy it because I really like being in with team sports and just having an atmosphere like that.”
And how is the new challenge going so far?
“I’m good at the twirling and flourishes,” Zane said. “I feel like when I’m going to have to catch it (the flag), I’m not going to be that great at it because I’m not that coordinated. But I’m really just excited to be here and I have to work on it.”
Bayisenge Marie-Claire, a junior-to-be at Corcoran, is one of the old pros waiting to help. The percussionist tried marching band last year out of curiosity, and she had such a good time she’s back for an encore.
“Music is my passion. I taught myself how to play the piano,” she said. “And when I heard that there was a marching happening in Syracuse City, that made me excited. I joined it, and since now we’re doing it again I decided to come back to teach the younger kids how great it is to be in the marching band. I just loved everything (last year).”
Fun will only be part of the equation as the Pride tries to hone a competitive routine whose theme is a tribute to the city of Syracuse. McCoy said her squad won’t actually be scored until the end-of-year championships at the dome, but it will pay close attention to the marks earned by rival schools and the type of polish needed to earn them.
“I’m hoping we land somewhere in the middle,” McCoy said. “Obviously, I don’t want to be last. But if we place last that’s OK too because we’re new. We won’t though.”
Zane is prepared to take something positive from her marching band experience regardless of what the final scoreboard says.
“I think that I’m going to have fun just being in this atmosphere. But I’ll be a little bummed, depending on what placement we get, if we don’t get a great place,” she said. “But I think that our team’s going to do really well. I just think that we’re going to be a really great marching band this year. I think success for me this year, and for the whole team, would be just being able to bond and grow our marching band and be more of a team, being able to rely on each other, not just winning or losing.”
Contact Lindsay Kramer anytime: Email | Twitter
