ODU marching band prepares for opening game

"Once you do something great," shouts Alex Trevino, the director of ODU's athletic bands, "I won't accept anything less!"

He's standing atop a platform about 7 feet off the ground, looking over his 135 musicians on the SB Ballard Field's lush and convincing artificial turf. They're rehearsing - yet again - for the football team's first game of the season, which is Saturday. But this season isn't just any season, it's the first one ever; these practices will establish the very soul and reputation of the band.

"That's the problem with getting better - I'm going to want more."

The band, charged with the hefty duty of being the iconic sight and sound of ODU's pre-games and halftimes, starts up again, delivering a crisp rendition of the school's fight song.

As everyone in town knows, ODU's football team plays its first game this weekend - an event that seems to have been a lifetime in the making - and fans' daydreams have included the sounds of whistles blowing, coaches yelling and helmets crashing. The progress of the football team has been followed closely.

But on another field, another set of dedicated students has been gearing up for their big day, too. Since Aug. 18, Trevino's corps has been dutifully practicing - in the weeks before school started, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, except on Tuesday scrimmage matches, when it went until 8 p.m.

Practically a second job, the rehearsal of formations, marching and, of course, playing has meant coordinating every little movement so that when ODU takes on Chowan University, the 20,000 spectators will be just as entertained by the marching band as by the athletes.

Or, as Trevino puts it, "to make sure nobody goes to the snack bar."

Up until July 2007, Trevino supervised the band at the University of Washington, where he was the graduate assistant band director. (Since moving to Hampton Roads, he finished his doctorate in music education with the school.)

When he arrived in this area to lead ODU's bands (he also oversees the pep band, the one for the regatta and soccer), he started connecting with the networks of great bands in the region and state.

He dialed local directors, canvassed high schools and even put a video on YouTube. Auditions followed in spring 2008. By last August, an early band had gelled, and that group performed at functions including the school's inaugural tailgating celebration and exhibitions at high schools here and as far away as the Richmond area, where they would raise their profile and lure prospective students. As of last month, the current lineup was in place - and since then it has been practice, practice and more practice.

"Their discipline really shows," says Ezra Washington, band director for Maury High School.

Himself an ODU grad, Washington has, on this late-August day, brought some students from his band to observe. The band hasn't had time to establish any trademarks, but he's impressed. "There's not a lot of messing around - there's not a lot of downtime."

Water breaks are frequent - owing to 92 degree temperatures so intense that heat waves rise off the ground - but the inaugural band remains permanently on-task. Many of them shirtless, or wearing sports bras and shorts, the band members rehearse everything in bits, section by section. (In the early stages, each section would rehearse music and "drill" - the term for the marching portion - gradually weaving together the sections.)

With just two weeks before showtime, they arrange themselves at the morning practice in clusters - drums here, horns there and so on. By midafternoon they've formed into a full troupe, marching up and down the field. They march first in eight steps, then 16, then the full field, all under the exacting eye of Trevino, who obsesses over every sound and motion.

At one point, because they don't seem to be in a straight line, he says: "Look at your feet. Check the angle of your horn. Are you leaning forward?"

From his perch, he seems able to spot a hair out of place.

Stylistically, the band borrows elements from the Big Ten collegiate sound, a military-drill style and a style like that of Norfolk State University's esteemed band, which weaves in pop elements.

The first show, Trevino says, will pay homage to the "Guitar Hero" video game, with tributes to Ozzy Osbourne and Bon Jovi. Their second show will nod to Earth Wind & Fire, and on Halloween, well. "You've gotta have a little 'Thriller,' " Trevino says.

So far, everyone's happy with how things are going. Horn section sophomore Steven Zemanian, from Norfolk Collegiate, simply says, "It's great." And fellow horn sophomore Darius Warren, from Midlothian, says, "I can't wait to play for 20,000 people."

David Walker, who plays with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, has been working with the drum section. "It's going incredibly well - as much as we hoped for."

But there's one little thing. The band members are still being fitted for their uniforms. Which means they'll have very little time to practice in full regalia before Saturday.

"That's going to be a wake-up call," Walker says. "It's going to add about 15 degrees."

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662 malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com