Pep In My Step

Uh, Aggies? We though you were bringing the PEP band!
Every year, I fall in love again.

Some time after the bright lights of football have faded and the spats and bibbers have been hung up, I immerse myself in another season, already in progress.

Pep band season.

While 80 Minutes' rudiments are deeply rooted in marching band, I actually spent more time as a member of a pep band than I did in marching band. And while I'll confess it, like basketball, doesn't stay on my mind year round, when I fall, I fall HARD.

I live in Greensboro, NC, which has proclaimed itself Tournament Town and is home to both the ACC women's tournament, and, at least for the next year, the ACC men's tournament. For a bit, I had a fear - even convinced myself it would be justified - that with the tournament now accommodating 15 teams and spreading an extra day, team may not send their pep bands for opening day action. Luckily, that fear went unfounded, but instead it was I who was un able to make it to game action in the Greensboro Coliseum.

If last year ended in a Basketbinge, surely this year has been a relative basketfamine. My season tickets at UNCG men's hoops all but amounted to a donation to the athletic department, and I missed both ACC tournaments in my city. Lucky for me, action hasn't completely left my region yet, and while I'm not sure if I'll make it to either, I have my sights set on men's NCAA tournament action in Raleigh, as well as women's tournament action in Durham and Chapel Hill. If I can't make it out that way, it'll be the better part of a year before I get a live pep band fix again.

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