Catch Cardinal Spirit and strike up the Big Red Band (Deppe, Griner)
Brenda Griner ’87, ’03, has fond memories of the spirit and traditions that surrounded Lamar University football. Now, she eagerly anticipates a new and exciting era of Cardinal spirit.
Griner is the artistic director of Lamar’s Spirit Team—a group that is spreading its wings in preparation for the return of football in 2010.
“I am truly a Cardinal, and, when I attended Lamar, we still had football,” said Griner, a Port Neches resident who earned a bachelor’s degree in dance and, later, a master of science degree. “This is an exciting time, seeing all the traditions about to be brought back. It’s wonderful for campus—and the community—to experience Lamar’s growth.”
And, Griner said, Southeast Texas dancers and cheerleaders have a golden opportunity to be part of the action. “If you were here in the ’80s, you remember that time. I can’t wait to see how this affects the look and spirit of the university. It will bring a lot of new opportunities to high school dancers and cheerleaders who might otherwise leave the area.”
The new Spirit Team “will have to do it all,” Griner said. “We have a lot of talent. We’re looking for dancers who cheer and cheerleaders who dance.”
Griner, her assistants and Spirit Team officers are visiting area high schools as the quest for new team members expands. Lamar also is offering Spirit Team “prep” classes to Lamar students as well as to middle school and high school dancers and cheerleaders.
After one season of scrimmages, the Cardinals will launch their first official season in 2010. By then, plans will be in place for the new Spirit Team with its various divisions, such as a dance team and cheerleaders. More auditions are scheduled between now and then, adding to successful expansion that began with tryouts in fall 2008.
The current Spirit Team is an elite Division 1 dance team that performs at all home basketball games as well as various community events. In addition to serving as the Spirit Team’s artistic director, Griner is associate director of programs for Lamar Recreational Sports. She has performed as a professional dancer and choreographer all over the world. Her career as an entertainer includes movies, VH1, cruise ships, musicals and opera companies.
Additional information is available from Griner at bggriner@my.lamar.edu.
The “grandest band in the land”—is on the way back. And then some. As Scott Deppe ’90, Lamar’s director of bands, sees it, the musicians who strut their stuff on the W.S. “Bud” Leonard Field at Provost-Umphrey Stadium in 2010 will create a “panorama” of entertainment for students and alumni alike.
“I want the marching band here to be something different. When you turn on TV or see other colleges, they have almost a prescribed performance. They’ll march, they’ll stop and play and they’ll march,” Deppe said. “We would like to integrate it into more of a panorama—a visual and musical portrait that is almost a non-stop experience.”
After earning a master of music education degree from Lamar, he returned almost two decades later to find about 80 students enrolled in the band program. Those numbers have already increased to 100-plus.
“Realistically, we’ll probably have about 150 to start that first year of football—though we’re shooting for 200 to 250,” he said, adding “it would be nice” to restore levels of the 1970s when the Mighty Cardinal Marching Band was 350 musicians strong. “We hope the energy will still be there. We’ll shoot for the stars and hope we get close to our goal.
“Football will bring back not only the sport, but also some wonderful entertainment,” he said. He also envisions the games and band performances as outreach and recruitment opportunities for Lamar—attracting visiting school ensembles to join the Cardinal band on the field and in the stands. The prospect holds many benefits, not the least of which, he said, “is to allow those students to have a collegiate experience and also to excite them about Lamar.”
Deppe has been actively recruiting since he arrived in August 2008, visiting schools and conducting clinics and workshops. On the Lamar campus, the last weekend in January brought the first in a series of scholarship auditions in the Department of Music, Theatre & Dance.
“The excitement in the schools is with the band directors themselves, who are almost all from around here and are former Lamar band students,” he said. The band directors are spreading the word that the marching band is coming and that opportunities are available for their students.”
Meanwhile, Deppe is putting on another hat, as uniform designer, and he’d like to come up with “cutting-edge” marching attire. “Uniforms have gotten really flashy. Cutting-edge to me is something simple and striking.”
After meeting with uniform companies, he will bring final designs back to the university for a decision. Deppe is also shopping for instruments, with the first influx coming soon. “We have nothing for marching band, so we have to get percussion, and we have to get sousaphones. That’s exciting.”
As for entertainment, Deppe promises: “We don’t want to do the same-old same-old. We want to create something new and inviting to all. We’re looking to be innovative. We’ll do several shows a year to appeal to different crowds, and we’ve talked about different genres of music,” Deppe said.
One idea is to revisit Lamar’s most recent football era with tunes from the 1970s and ’80s—“the style, the music of the time, to spark some memories for alumni.”
Halftime performances would integrate aspects of music, drill design and choreography. “That’s going to be a major upheaval of style,” he said. “We want to bring back old standards . . . then find tunes current with students now—and come up with some cheers and moves in the stands that will become the new Lamar tradition.”
As a longtime high school band director, Deppe had occasion to visit with scores of band directors from throughout the region, “and they were awestruck when they spoke so fondly of Lamar University. “Through ups and downs, the alumni are proud of Lamar. They convinced me to come to Lamar, that it was a special place.”
