In 2014, East Tennessee State University hired Joe Moore for a daunting assignment: create a marching band from scratch. A decade later, the Marching Bucs have become a 360-member behemoth, and the band will perform Thursday in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. Moore and his students say the band’s success took dedication and creativity.
How to start a band
One of the first steps in creating a marching band entailed a long, expensive shopping list. The university had a band years before, but all of its supplies had been sold off. This left the new director with lots to do.
“Getting instruments, getting uniforms designed, getting color guard equipment like flagpoles and rifles, and designing the flags” were all part of the initial planning process, Moore said.
All that plus commissioning a new fight song. And, of course, the band needed members — the university asked Moore to sign on at least 100 in the first year. That meant going to high schools to recruit. Earlier in his career, Moore directed high school bands in East Tennessee, which meant he already had a good contact list.
“I had some band directors, especially (in) the rural areas, that said no one would ever come and visit them before,” he said.
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Once he had his people, the next step was putting together a show. That’s also a tall order — deciding on music, marching formations, color schemes for the flags, and many other details. But Forrest Stephens, a sophomore from Spring Hill, says Moore took things a step further.
“A lot of college shows that I’ve seen don’t really tell a story. It’s just a lot of pop music,” she said. “We do a lot of pop music, but we tell a story with it.”
East Tennessee State University ETSU’s Marching Bucs perform at a football game against the University of Virginia. In addition to marching in formation, ETSU’s marching band shows also tell a story.
Her first show was as take on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
“We had actually someone from the theater department come in and play the Headless Horseman for us,” Stephens said.
‘Home away from home’
Stephens has been in marching bands since eighth grade, and knows how to deal with its challenges.
“A lot of water. Bring water. Hydrate or die-drate,” she said. “Sunscreen. Bug spray — if we’re out on the practice field.”
Getting a crowd of people to practice in the Tennessee summer heat takes some charisma. Moore relies on his sense of humor, which the students seem to appreciate.
Stephens says he has some fun with his announcements to the band over the stadium PA system.
“He’s like, ‘Does anybody have a pocket knife? I need to borrow it. I stopped carrying one when I learned to kill a man with my bare hands. I need to open a box.’
I love this man’s sense of humor! He’s hysterical,” she said.
After the Marching Bucs started in 2015, word got out about it pretty quickly. It’s a rule of thumb for college marching bands to include around 1% of the student body. For ETSU, that would mean a group of about 140. But the band swelled to 160 in its first two years, and it’s grown steadily since then, to 360 members today. That’s bigger than the band at the much larger University of Tennessee Knoxville.
Junior Sarah Mock, a clarinetist and history major, says band members are still really close despite the band’s size. Spending all that practice time together makes them a family.
“It’s a home away from home,” Mock said. “I have people in the band that I can go to if I have a problem with something. Dr. Moore is a very approachable person as well, so if there was an issue, he has an open door policy so I can go to him. It’s just a very accepting community.”
Thanksgiving at Macy’s
Growing the band wasn’t Moore’s only goal. He always had another dream in the back of his head.
“I thought, ‘You know, I really would love to have a band in the Macy’s Day Parade one year.’ ”
A lifelong fan of the parade, Moore first applied in 2019 and was not selected. But this time around, the band beat out more prominent schools to make the cut. Moore still feels a bit like an underdog.
“If you look at the university bands that are going to be in it with us this year, those are flagship schools for their states. And we are a regional school,” he said. “You know, I’m just really proud of my kids for achieving this.”
East Tennessee State University Confetti falls as ETSU’s Marching Bucs find out they’ve been selected for the 2024 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The students were ecstatic when they heard the news — at a surprise meeting with the university president.
“It’s confetti everywhere, and, I mean, everybody just went wild,” Moore said.
He hopes the Marching Bucs will remember their time in the spotlight at this year’s Macy’s Day Parade, which broadcasts at 8:30 a.m. Thursday. But he also hopes they can use some of the simpler lessons they learned in band.
“We just we talk all the time about, you know, just being a good person,” he said. “Look up from your cell phone. When you’re walking across campus, smile at somebody or make eye contact. And I hope these are things that will carry over after they graduate, trying to help the community.”
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