DUBLIN, Ga. — High school football in Central Georgia is about more than just the coaches and players. It's fans, cheerleaders, and of course, the band. East Laurens High School's band doesn't take football Friday nights lightly. This year is not different. They plan to bring the thunder each gameday.
When an athlete takes the field every Friday night, fans know that players and coaches have spent tens of hours preparing for their 60 minutes on the field, but they don't think about the band and all the hours they've been preparing for their 10-minute performance.
For Jonathan Senn, the East Laurens band director, he's always looking for players.
"I always tell the kids, 'There's no second string in band -- everybody's up,'" Senn said.
Comparing football to band is nothing new -- they both have to be finely-tuned, work in sync, and be on beat.
"Who's willing to accept the challenge, willing to learn? And they're willing to help others," Senn said.
Mason Frost, a senior at East Laurens, says, "It's a lot of indoor and outdoor practicing, practicing by ourselves -- we're by section, have what we are supposed to be doing right," Frost said.
"As a whole, make sure we sound good, nobody's overpowering somebody else -- it just all sounds complete," Frost said.
All this prep doesn't happen overnight -- many of the band members, "started out in the fifth or sixth grade learning how to play instruments," Senn said.
There's the winds, percussions, and color guards. Serenity Sparger, a junior at East Laurens High says, "You play with your emotion. We're just all getting prepared mentally and physically before marching out and going to support our football team."
They're making sure everyone's on the same page, ready to hit the notes. Darrius Knight, a senior at East Laurens is, "Making sure that people say, 'Hey, let's go to the football game, and let's stay for halftime so we can see the band.'"
"We love people coming out to watch us, not just the football team. Yeah, they're pretty good, but we're good, too," Frost said.
East Laurens kicks off the season August 19 on the road against Washington-Wilkes.
Their first home game is September 2 versus Jenkins County. We salute all of the bands who work extremely hard to make Football Friday Nights special.