The Signal

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Thursday March 28th

Fall 2021 College Pep Band lookback: Band gets threatened by referee at Homecoming

On Oct. 2, the fall 2021 Homecoming, The College Pep Band played their instruments before the head of the football team warned them to stop (photo courtesy of Elisabeth Osekavage/ Photo Editor).
On Oct. 2, the fall 2021 Homecoming, The College Pep Band played their instruments before the head of the football team warned them to stop (photo courtesy of Elisabeth Osekavage/ Photo Editor).

By Chelsie Derman
Arts & Entertainment Editor

With the fall 2021 football season behind us — and with Pep Band now finished with all of their football performances, their second in-person nursery home visit, and their open house show — Pep Band looks back at some of their most exhilarating, puzzling, and downright frustrating moments. And one of those most puzzling and frustrating moments? Homecoming.

“Right towards the end of half time, the head of the football team, the guy who coordinates everything, he came up to me and he said, ‘hey, the ref from the other team came up to me and told me that you guys can’t play while the other team is playing, and if you continue to do that, it will be a penalty for TCNJ. And if you continue to do it despite that, you will be escorted off the field by police,”’ said Amulya Vijapurapu, president of the College Pep Band and a senior psychology major.

Pep Band immediately stopped playing upon the warning. However, confusion sat in the air.

Pep Band, like always, played when the other team was on offense and the College was on defense. Never before had this been a problem until the head of the College football team had brought this to their attention.

“(The head of the football team) said that this never happened before, this wasn’t our fault, it wasn’t anything we were doing wrong, but it is ultimately the ref’s call and for whatever reason the ref made that call,” Vijapurapu said.

According to Vijapurapu, the head of the football team told Pep Band that the only time they could play was before the huddle ended and before the other team began playing.

“That’s only ten seconds (of playing instruments), not a lot of time to do anything,” Vijapurapu said.

Despite Pep Band obeying and leaving the field after the warning, they had discovered that because of the referee’s annoyance with them, the Lions received a penalty. Vijapurapu reasoned that the ref was probably just having a “bad day.”

During the whole situation, Vijapurapu said she was more confused than angry.

“I was more confused because I was very new to football at that point,” Vijapurapu said. “I became president in junior year, so last year, but because we were online, I never went to football games and did those. So this is my second football game at that point, and the first time we didn’t get in trouble for it so I was like, ‘maybe I’m not doing anything wrong, like I’m okay.’ But then when he told me that, I was like, “Oh my gosh, am I doing something wrong? Is there something I’m missing?” So I was confused and not sure if I was doing something wrong or anything.”

Fortunately, everyone — including Vijapurapu’s own band members and the head coach — reassured her she didn’t do anything wrong. However, that only fueled her frustration.

“I was annoyed too, because I was in Pep Band before I became president and, whenever we played football games, it was always what we did and we never had problems with it,” Vijapurapu said. “So I was annoyed that it's never been a problem, but all of a sudden it was, and I was confused why that was happening.”

Other students like Pep Band Vice President Ryan Haupt, a senior music education major, described his reaction to the referee’s warning.

“The band and I were upset to hear about the football referee's displeasure with our playing during active play on the field,” Haupt said. “This situation was unprecedented for us, as we've always performed while the opposing team has had the ball. While it was an unfortunate situation for us and our members, I'm proud of how the band handled the situation with class, and we got a chance to debrief together in the band room after hearing the news.”

But while the homecoming debacle put a damper on Pep Band members' moods, they still got to do a little bit of performing that day.

“We did get to perform for the majority of the game leading up to the 3rd or 4th quarter, so we definitely helped entertain the audience and players,” Haput said. “My hope is that this situation doesn't have a lasting impact on our relationship with the athletic department, as our organization relies on events such as football games to continue to exist. I look forward to performing for basketball games next semester!”

This football season, Pep Band played music at a total of three football games. Fortunately, this was the only game at which the band got in trouble for playing while the College was on defense.

“(The game on Nov. 12) was good. We didn’t run into that issue again, so it was just exclusively for Homecoming,” Vijapurapu said. “We were completely fine with the one we just went to. No comments or penalties were made because of us. We stayed for the whole thing. We played as we normally do when the other team is on offense and nothing happened.”

Vijapurapu said the football season for Pep Band has “been a pretty good season.” She highlighted some of her favorite moments this fall.

“This is the second time we’ve had a nursing home performance, which we had during COVID and we went back again this semester. So being able to continue that was a good experience, and it was nice after Covid to finally get back into football  — and do the open houses as well — so just being able to go back to things that were familiar and keep trying new things was also great,” said Vijapurapu. 

Haupt agreed that it was nice getting back to the swing of how things used to be.

“I was very happy with the Pep Band's work this semester,” Haput said. “It was refreshing to be able to perform in-person with everyone again since we just came off a whole year of virtual rehearsals. It was lovely to see our members continue to reaffirm their commitment to the band despite it being a challenging semester for us all — I can't wait to continue our work in the spring.”




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