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Michigan football team with no band invites band with no team to play at its games

Forest Area Marching Band

The Forest Area Marching Band poses for a photo. The band’s school lost its football season this year due to a lack of players and a nearby school lost its band. Forest Area Marching Band traveled to Maple City – Glen Lake to bring music and the full gameday experience to the fans at its home game on Friday, Sept. 27.

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Maple City – Glen Lake invited the marching band from Forest Area Schools to play at its home game, according to the AP. The band traveled about an hour to be there and played the National Anthem before kickoff and took the field at halftime – in the rain – for its “Out of this World” show. Forest Area’s football season was canceled when too few players came out for the team.

The school’s band members were thrilled to bring their music to a football crowd.Ashley Peckat, a senior, said she “absolutely flipped.” She said it’s important to “show people what we can do.”

Glen Lake athletic director Matthew Mattson proposed the idea to Forest Area band director Brandon Deike who told MLive that an athletic director calling a band director an hour away to play at a football game is “just bizarre” and “really cool.”

The band is welcome to return for future games, Mattson said. There’s nothing like having a band “rocking out with our fans,” he said. Deike said he and his 43 players hope to return if scheduling allows because Forest Area knows what it’s like not to have a band.

In 2011, the district’s music programs were cut. That year, Deike volunteered to teach band before school. In 2012, the high school band program was reinstated but it took years to restart choir and elementary music, he said. “We had eight kids in band,” Deike said. “We’ve rebuilt here; we know what they’re going through.”

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“and as the players tried to take the field, the marching band refused to yield.”
– don mclean
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credits: justine lofman, mlive.com – photo: tawni Deike, associated press, up north live

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