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As the rest of marching band season rolls on, we wanted to take a moment to highlight another amazing organization that a lot of our members participate in: Valiant.

Valiant is the Winter Guard team here at Virginia Tech; it is a student-run organization that travels to compete against other Winter Guards during the winter and spring seasons. 

Valiant is run by a student director, picked by the members at the end of each season. This year, the group is run by returning director Catherine Miller, a senior in our own MV Color Guard. This will be her second year as director for Valiant. The director’s role, with the help of an assistant director, is to create the choreography for the show of the season. They decide the music, uniforms, and coordinate everything needed to be done for the organization to compete. Alongside the directors, Valiant also uses managers, who are volunteers to help on competition days with the behind the scenes work of the organization.

Competition Photo from 2021-2022 Season! Source: Bethany Hillmann

The spinners in the organization have many wonderful things to say about this organization. Returning member Bethany Hillmann spoke about her experience as a spinner in Valiant. When asked about her experience in Valiant, she said that it involves a lot of hard work and dedication, but is all worth it seeing the product at the end. One of her favorite memories from last season was getting ready with the team before all of their competitions.

Similar to the Marching Virginians, Valiant is an audition based ensemble. The audition involves an interview with the director, as well as spinning and choreography. The auditionees have to learn two routines in a short time span, performing them for not only the director, but judges who observe and make comments as well. Auditionees also have the option to audition on the rifle, which adds another layer to the process. After a long day of auditions, decisions are made, and the new team gets hard at work on creating a wonderful show for competitions.

This organization takes a lot of time and dedication, but the end product is a marvel to witness. We are so excited to see the show that the team will create for us this season!

Check back next week for our game day recap against Georgia Tech!

Bringing the Hype to Campus – Turner Pep Band

Picture this – it’s the Friday before game day, and campus is just too quiet. The clock strikes noon, and suddenly, live music can be heard from the northern side of campus. Students, faculty, and passerby can hear Tech Triumph, the Hokie Pokie, and other typical game day tunes. The source? It’s the Turner Pep Band!

Lavery Hall

With Turner Dining Hall being one of the few dining halls on the academic side of campus, it’s certainly a prime spot for our music to reach the largest number of Hokies.

Pep Band Pride

Although it’s only a small portion of our 330-member band, we still deliver the same energy and excitement as the entire Marching Virginians would. Each and every member of the Turner Pep Band can be seen jamming out in their best Hokie attire.

Pre-Game Day Traditions

Despite being the day before game day, we still consider Pep Band to be one our favorite Game Day Traditions. Turner Pep Band prepares us to be The Spirit of Tech in Lane Stadium!

…And Beyond

The MVs have had the privilege of performing at Coach Pry’s Arrival to Blacksburg, the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design Ceremony, the 2022 Alumni Picnic, and of course our annual pep band: Hokies for the Hungry, which will take place the morning of the Georgia Tech game for 2022. Help be a part of Virginia Tech’s Ut Prosim mission to provide aid for local Hokies.

Spirit Week with The Spirit of Tech!

This week is Homecoming at Virginia Tech, a time where we welcome our alumni home and celebrate all the amazing things about our University. With events all week, the competition for Homecoming court, and fun celebrations such as the Friday night parade all leading up to the big game on Saturday, there is so much spirit running rampant through the University. 

For Homecoming week, Tau Beta Sigma organizes a Spirit Week for the Marching Virginians, a competition between the sections to see who has the most spirit in the band. 

Spirit Week consists of themed dress-up days with sections gaining points for participation. In addition to dress up days, points are earned through donations. As an organization, we are committed to serving the community around us, so at the end of the week, all Spirit Week donations get pulled together and will be donated to Cancer Research Institute, a non-profit organization researching cancer based in New York City. At the end of the week, the winning section receives party hats and the ability to choose a stand tune of their choice at Saturday’s football game, Homecoming against Miami.

Section Traditions

During Spirit Week, our Drum Majors, Managers, and Twirlers team up! (Source: Gillian Murphy)

During Spirit Week, there are some fun section traditions that take place. One notable one is of a competition between the combined saxophone section and the tuba section, where they “anti-theme”, purposefully dressing up in the opposite of the assigned theme. According to Saxophone Section Leader Daniel Gaete, they do this to earn the most negative amount of points possible, wanting to show their MV Spirit in their own way. Additionally, for Spirit Week, the Managers combine sections with the Drum Majors and Twirlers, joining forces to win as many points for their team.

Mosaic Monday

Our Nets sporting orange! (Source: Aaron George)

Monday started us off with Mosaic Monday, where sections were assigned a color to wear to earn points for their team. Practice looked beautiful, with hundreds of our amazing members matching each other. The Trombones quickly took the lead, gaining almost 100 points on the first day. Sections went all out, with people dressing from head to toe in their color. After everyone saw how committed the other sections were, donations started rolling in, kickstarting the service initiative.

Tropical Tuesday

Our Tropical Tones! (Source: Andrew Stewart)

Tuesday gave us Tropical Tuesday, where the band dressed up for a warm, tropical vacation on a cold, October night. Sections appeared in leis, hats, and sunglasses. Almost every single section received 100% participation rates, maximizing the amount of points they could earn. The winners from Monday were announced at rehearsal, and sections following close behind began sending in donations to increase their point totals and attempt to dethrone the winning section. The Trombones maintained their lead, with the Trumpets within 15 points. The competition is close, with it still being anyone’s game.

Looking Forward to Game Day!

Our twinning Drum Majors! (Source: Calvin Moore)

As we finish the rest of the week, the anticipation as to who will be the 2022 Marching Virginians Spirit Week winner is high. The themes for the last two days are Wacky Wednesday and Twin Thursday, both themes with a lot of room for creativity. As of Thursday, the lead is still held by the Trombones, but everythign could get turned on it’s head from donations in these last few days! Through this week’s donations, the MVs are taking the time to embody ‘Ut Prosim”, the school’s motto: “That I May Serve.” We are truly an organization devoted to giving back to the wonderful community around us.

Check back next week for our homecoming game recap!

Meet the Blog Writing Team!

It’s been a long couple weeks of back-to-back home football games, so now that we have a small breather, we’re thrilled to introduce our Blog Writing Team for this season! Up until now, all posts were written and edited by our Marketing Communications Officers, Abbie Robertson and Andrew Stewart. Members of the Multimedia Team filled out applications and were selected by the Multimedia Officers based on their aptitudes for photography, graphic design, and for our Blog Writing Team, writing.

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Marketing Communications Officers

Abbie Robertson

Abbie is a sophomore at Virginia Tech from Roanoke, VA, and is double majoring in Mathematics Education and Psychology. This is her second year marching in the tenor sax section in the MVs and is one of the Marketing Communications Officers. After her first year, she knew she needed to put more time into the organization and community that truly made Virginia Tech home. Every band she was in - the Marching Virginians, Campus and Symphony Band, Pep Band - secured her passion for this school, the music department, and the people involved in the bands. Some of her other passions are using her red hair as her only personality trait, making a fool of herself, and recently she’s picked up her old hobby of reading again. She is incredibly excited for what this year has to offer!

Andrew Stewart

Andrew Stewart is a junior from Hillsboro, VA majoring in Industrial and Systems Engineering, and minoring in Human-Computer Interactions. He is in his third year with the Marching Virginians, is serving as a baritone rank captain for his second year, and is a Marketing Communications Officer this year! Apart from The Marching Virginians, Andrew is a proud member of the Hokies Volleyball and Basketball Pep Bands, and is a brother of Kappa Kappa Psi. Outside of the band, Andrew enjoys lifting weights, stargazing, Britney Spears, and telling people about his tattoo. Andrew hopes to apply to the ISE graduate school program to study cognitive engineering or biomechanics. Andrew is very excited to serve the band in every way he can!

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Blog Writing Team

Julia Darden

Julia is a second year History major from Yorktown, Virginia. She focuses mainly on American and European History and wants to use her education to work in Museums. This is her second year in the Marching Virginians saxophone section and her second year on the multimedia team. Outside of MV’s she has participated in Campus Band and Symphony Band. Julia has played saxophone for nine years and she was Band President and Drum Major for the Grafton High School Marching band her junior and senior years of high school. Hobbies outside of band include reading an absurd amount of books, making bomb smoothies, and telling everyone around her that “they sang this on Glee”!

Emy Delaporte

Emy is a dual degree sophomore in technical writing and journalism with double minors in natural resources and conservation. This is her second season marching with and blogging for the Marching Virginians! She’s a proud member of the MVPix. Outside of the band, she’s an editor for the Silhouette magazine and blog and a staff writer for the Collegiate Times, as well as a member of the Bird Club, The Wildlife Society, the National Deer Association, and more. Emy likes to spend her free time birding, volunteering in CNRE’s Wildlife Habitat and Population Analysis lab, writing novels, camping, going on drives, and taking in the cold night air.

Sarah-Faith Mukuna

Sarah-Faith is a second year engineering major from Fairfax County, VA, with plans to declare Biological Systems Engineering on the Health Professions (specifically pre-med) track. She also minors in French. She is a proud member of Rank 69, the managers section! One of her biggest hobbies is writing, which is why she is so excited to serve the band on this team! Sarah-Faith also loves listening to music and playing her instruments; she just started playing the tenor sax! Outside of MVs, Sarah-Faith is the Treasurer of Tau Beta Sigma and a member of National Society of Black Engineers. In her free time, she loves reading books (90% chance it’s Percy Jackson), going to the gym, and cooking.

Emery Poulsen

Emery is a senior from Fairfax County, Virginia and is studying Environmental Data Science. This is her fourth and final year as a member of the Marching Virginians, where she serves the band as its Treasurer. She has loved her time in the baritone section, where she finds herself laughing constantly. Trying out for the MVs was the best decision Emery could have made coming into college, and she hopes to communicate that through her blog posts! She's excited to write for Marching with the Virginians for a fourth year. Outside of the Marching Virginians, Emery is involved in numerous other student organizations, including serving as the Treasurer for Kappa Kappa Psi, being a Programming Executive for the Big Event at Virginia Tech, practicing with the Virginia Tech Running Club, or playing in the Hokies Pep Band. In her occasional spare time, Emery loves running, hiking, and trying new foods.

Atlas Vernier

Atlas is a fifth-year student at Tech pursuing dual degrees in Industrial & Systems Engineering and French. This is their fifth year playing piccolo in the Marching Virginians, where they are the proud rank captain of Rank 7! They serve as a photographer and a writer for the MV Blog. Outside of marching band, Atlas is a researcher, focusing on immersive augmented/virtual reality experiences and autonomous collaborative robotics. They are also a translator and subtitler for multiple international broadcasts, as well as a post-production lead for a TV series set to be released in 2023. Atlas is so excited to be a part of the multimedia team, and they can't wait to share their experiences and stories!

Game-Day Traditions

Our first home game of the season is just around the corner, and we’re super excited to be back in Lane Stadium! Ahead of the game against Boston College, we’d like to take some time to talk about some of our game-day traditions. While each section of the band has their own specific traditions that they hold dear, we’ll be looking at some of the traditions practiced by the entire band!

Motorcycles

Once game day officially starts with the Spirit of Tech donning their uniforms, we warm up with a fun game of “motorcycles”. Motorcycles consists of Dr. Polly calling out a number 1 through 7, and the MVs squatting down to different depths and shouting, eventually getting to 7 and (typically) falling on the ground.

(Source: Nayha Pochiraju)

March to Victory

The trek to Lane Stadium, beginning at the Marching Virginians Center, entails cheering fans, hyping up tailgaters, and plenty of high-fives. Each section of the MVs has synchronized dances, jigs, and cheers to hype everyone up!

(Source: Beau Wong)

Stack

Stack is the Marching Virginians Center’s very own Hokie Bird. Named in honor of Ryan “Stack” Clark, a baritone player who lost his life in the April 16th tragedy, Stack has become an important part of MV tradition. During our March to Victory, every MV gives Stack a pat on the back for good luck and to honor his memory.

(Source: Abbie Robertson)

The Hokie Pokie and Tech Triumph

During the game, the tubas take to the field to perform the Hokie Pokie, a staple of Hokie football tradition! After a hard fought game, the football team meets the Marching Virginians at the north end-zone to hear the band sing and perform Tech Triumph!

(Source: Nayha Pochiraju)

Superman

Ever since it was first performed during our pregame performance in 1982, the MVs have played the “Superman” theme at the end of a VT football game. This song connects the MVs to past, present, and future Marching Virginians. Some of our sections help people to “fly” like Superman by hoisting them up at the swell of the tune.

(Source: Andrew Single)

See you next week for our first game-day recap of the 2022 season!

Hokie Football is Back!

September has come, and every Hokie knows what that means — college football is back! The Marching Virginians are no exception to the excitement of our 2022 season, with our very first game being tonight at Old Dominion University with kickoff at 7:00 pm EST. This upcoming season is sure to be one to remember, as we introduce our new head coach, Brent Pry.

From Altoona, Pennsylvania, Pry spent time at Virginia Tech from 1995-97 as a graduate assistant to Hokie football legends Frank Beamer and Bud Foster and helped lead the Hokies to two consecutive New Years’ Day bowl games. Since 2016, Pry served as the defensive coordinator for Penn State, but was thrilled to return to Virginia Tech as our new head coach. Pry, upon returning to Virginia Tech, has fostered a “Ground Up” approach of building the team up to their full potential. The “Ground Up” initiative has also brought back a beloved piece of Hokie football tradition — the Lunch Pail.

Brent Pry speaking to The Marching Virginians (Source: Dave Knachel)

Coach Pry visited The Marching Virginians at one of our rehearsals and took the opportunity to speak with the band as a whole about his vision for the Spirit of Tech’s important role in game-day tradition. Pry voiced his appreciation of the band and the relationship that the band and football team have formed over the years. To reciprocate our appreciation, a small band visited the football team and surprised them by performing game day favorites! We also taught the football team the lyrics to Tech Triumph!

The Marching Virginians surprising the football team (source: Emily Saintsing)

Ahead of our opening game of the season, Pry will be facing off against a former colleague from Penn State, Old Dominion’s head coach Ricky Rahne. With many fresh faces on both the coaching staff and the team, the coaching staff was excited to announce our new starting quarterback, Grant Wells. The 6’2” junior transferred from Marshall and will be wearing #6. The Hokie’s record against ODU currently stands at 2-1, with ESPN giving the Hokies a 66.3% chance of victory over ODU.

The full band with Coach Brent Pry (source: Dave Knachel)

As we taught the football team during our surprise visit, “Win or lose, we'll greet you with a glad returning. You're the pride of V. P. I.”!

All information found in this post is from hokiesports.com and ESPN.

New Beginnings - Rookie Perspective

Our first week of classes comes to an end, we wanted to take time to reminisce on OUR favorite week of the year - band camp. Seven full days of marching, making music, and seeing our closest friends, as well as making new ones with rookies. We took the time to ask our rookies some questions about their journey of becoming part of the 2022 edition of the Marching Virginians!

We have 105 new marchers in the 2022 edition of the Marching Virginians!

Pictured: Our (bari)tone and (trom)bone sections source: Abbie Robertson

Question 1: How did you hear about the MVs?

Pictured: Our trumpet section and drum major Thomas Chase source: Abbie Robertson

Jeremy Teague (3rd-year rookie, Trumpet)

• “My brother was one. He graduated last winter, so I went to the games recently. I’ve always loved marching band.”

Alex Shupp (1st-year rookie, Alto sax)

• “I always knew of college marching band, but I heard about MVs through my brother.”

Lauren Watt (1st-year rookie, Trumpet)

• “When I started looking at schools I knew I was going to be checking out the marching band programs because it’s something I was passionate about in high school and wanted to continue in college so when I looked into Virginia Tech I got to see how important the MV’s are to the community and just generally how awesome and dedicated the band is!”

Question 2: What was your audition process like?

Pictured: Our goofy sax section source: Andrew Stewart

Jeremy Teague

• “It wasn’t too difficult, but it was very mental. Try to keep my focus and not get stressed about getting in. They told us to have fun and I made friends early.”

Alex Shupp

• “I thought it was going to be a lot more stressful, but all the upperclassmen made me feel welcome as soon as I got there.”

Lauren Watt

• “My audition experience was interesting! Over the summer I got to practice a little bit of music and marching as the first part of the audition and when I started band camp everyone was very nice and encouraging while I tried out in person. Overall it was very fun and I really liked the process!”

Question 3: What are you most excited for as a rookie?

Pictured: Our 37-person net section source: Abbie Robertson

Jeremy Teague

• “The football games. It’s so fun watching it, but it’ll be even better being a part of it. The environment in the stadium is awesome.”

Alex Shupp

• “Football games. I’ve watched the marching band from afar, but now that I know the dances, it’ll be so fun.”

Lauren Watt

• “It’s a little nerve-wracking as well but as a rookie I’m most excited for my first time playing in Lane Stadium as an official MV, getting to experience what it’s like in the stands, hearing enter sandman, and marching the show!”

Question 4: What has been your favorite part of MVs so far?

Pictured: Our lovely piccolo section source: Abbie Robertson

Jeremy Teague

• “So far, honestly, the breaks we get to play with our sections. The fun we get to have with our sections outside of marching.”

Alex Shupp

• “All of the saxophone traditions. Especially rank traditions #bank rank is the best rank”

Lauren Watt

• “My favorite part of being an MV is definitely the connection I feel to my section. Everyone is so kind to each other and upbeat and I really like getting to hang out together in and out of practice! I’m very grateful for the positivity and acceptance that I feel each time I interact with anyone in the band and it makes me so proud to call myself a Marching Virginian.”

We are so excited for what this year has to offer!

Pictured: The horns and their corn source: Abbie Robertson