Sad trombone: Columbia football should bring back bands — its own and opposing teams
At 1 p.m. today is the kickoff at Kraft Field/Wien Stadium uptown, where the host Columbia Lions (2-1 this season) will welcome the winless Wagner College Seahawks from Staten Island. We don’t know if a Seahawks band will be along for the game, but if they are there, Columbia must let them perform their music.
We offer the admittedly odd advice because last week, Columbia refused to let a visiting team’s band, from Princeton, play on the field before the game or at halftime. It’s the Ivy League version of there being no fighting in the war room: There’s no cavorting at the football game.
The saga started when Columbia University banned their own prank-playing irreverent marching band from football games three years ago. The following fall, during the worst of COVID, the rag-tag group of musicians voted to disband. None of that justifies the school blocking others from performing.
The Princeton band was relegated to the stands for its music-making. At least Columbia didn’t try confiscating their instruments, as they did with Columbia musicians after the 2019 ban decree.
The Lions opened their season by crushing their rivals in two away games against non-conference opponents, but last week, facing their first home game and first Ivy League match, they fell apart. Maybe some music — either from the opposing team, or a yet-to-be-reborn Columbia band — would have given the cowardly Lions more courage.
Was the Princeton band prohibited to avoid the embarrassment that there is no Columbia band? It couldn’t have been COVID protocols, which were in place last year. The university’s existing COVID rules were relaxed on Oct. 1, the day of the Princeton match.
The students who were freshmen in 2019, when the old band was banned, are seniors now. Memory of a band is fading. But while Columbia tries to erase the tradition of a musical pep squad, other colleges and teams, like Princeton, aren’t. Keeping the field empty before the kickoff does nothing except make Columbia look small and petty.
Let the music play.
