Falcone and Bush are the associate and assistant director of bands, respectively, at Nebraska. Falcone picks the music and Bush figures out how to place 300 trombone, clarinet, saxophone and flute players and a bunch of drummers on Tom Osborne Field every home game.
“You make the effort and learn the music, make a lot of lifelong friends and get to play in front of 90,000 people every home game,” said senior drum major Ben Coatney. “As the song goes, ‘We stick together in all kinds of weather,’ too.”
From auditions in the spring to the boiling summer workouts before school starts, to the cold, windy weather that can knock a sousaphone player backward and freeze the keys on a trumpet, the band plays on.