ED NOTE: I asked former site contributor for women’s basketball Boiler Bandsman to come out of retirement and write a piece on the legendary Al G. Wright, the Purdue Bands director who passed away this week at age 104. Here is his piece:
A man retiring after 50 years in any position leaves cavernous shoes to fill, let alone one so steeped in tradition and history as Purdue’s All-American Marching Band. That was the task faced by one Al G Wright in 1954, when he took up the baton from the legendary Paul “Spotts” Emrick, founder and longtime director of the AAMB (recipient of his own Profile in Badassery).