I’m not trying to betray my people or give those who don’t like us an excuse to belittle what we do. But Marching Band is not a sport. At least, I don’t think that it’s a sport in the same way that football or basketball are sports.

Personally, I’ve never been involved in a sport in high school (or middle school if I’m being completely honest) but from what I’ve heard, your team is like your family. You work hard every day after school, so that you can win at your games or tournaments or championships. It’s a lot of physical activity, and it’s exhausting.

Marching Band? All of the above. But debate meets almost all those requirements too. So does robotics. So does musical. And we have to draw the line somewhere. As far as I see it the band behaves as a team does, which makes sense. We go to competitions and spend all of our time together, so naturally we’d become a family or “team”.

I think the line becomes foggy at the physical activity. You don’t have to be a running machine or a weight-lifting giant to be in Marching Band (proven obvious by me who is very, very, very far from being fit). There is more of a mental challenge to being in band. Marching around a field while trying to have nice posture, remembering where to go in the sets, counting in your head, and playing on your instrument all at the same time is really, really challenging. But just because something is hard doesn’t make it a sport.

And it’s true, people come to watch the football team on Friday Nights. Heck, the band comes to watch to football team. And we’re there even if we lose 50-7 every night. We aren’t there only because we want to do our show for the audience, we’re there to play music that we hopes makes the team feel better. Or the red sea want to stand up.

So just because I don’t think that we’re a sport, doesn’t mean that we’re not a team. And that’s half the battle anyways.