Well, thanks to some front page coverage in  Charlottesville’s Daily Progress, this little joke has gotten more attention than I expected.  Although it was covered in the article above, I feel I should say a few things for those who may not understand my motives. Bluntly put, I believe the only legitimate band at UVa can be a band that is entirely student self-governed, as it has been for over 30 years.

This website is first and foremost a joke. I put it together as a good laugh for myself and my friends who have been watching powerlessly as the Athletic Department defiled something we love dearly. This page was an act of frustration as I stood by and watched a great UVa tradition squandered by professionals in the AD while the rest of the UVa community either watched apathetically or labored ineffectively to save the student-governed band at UVa.

Second, I want to be clear:  this website does *NOT* represent the official views of the Virginia Pep Band.  It does not have the support of the Pep Band's student leadership.  I have been asked by the Pep Band's leaders to take the site down and have declined. Again, this website reflects my personal views only. It would be wrong for anyone to hold this website against the Pep Band as a whole.  Blame it on the frustrations of a graduating fourth year student who has witnessed the unfair treatment of the student organization he worked very hard to support while he was at UVA.

Most importantly, this website is *not* a personal attack. As I said to the reporter from the Progress, I’m sure Bill Pease is a great man. I am encouraged by his apparent willingness to work with the Pep Band.  Mr. Pease has inherited quite a mess and has been put in a difficult situation.  I certainly hope he will continue to find a way to work with the Pep Band and I hope he is able to take this website as it is intended, in jest.

Do I really think the athletic department is evil? Despite a few pieces of propaganda I’ve written that say just that, of course I don’t. I would like nothing more than a harmonious relationship between the student band and the athletic department, but I won’t allow the sacrifice of student self-governance to achieve it.  I really think that it should be the athletic department’s burden to level with the students of the Pep Band, instead of discarding them wholesale.  A University department should be here to serve the students, not to stand in the way of a student group’s support of student athletes. The athletic department has stopped serving students and begun a quest to build UVa into a great sports franchise. While that may not sound too bad, when the athletic department treats UVa not as a University, but as a franchise, it is the students that suffer.

So what do I want to see?  I want to see the Pep Band, Bill Pease and the AD working together to support Virginia athletics.  If a marching band is necessary, so be it, but let the student band play for athletic events as they always have. I think a two band system will make a new tradition that is still rooted in the Jeffersonian ideals that made UVa great.

What I dearly hope is that the professionals in the athletic department are not so angered by my little joke as to give up on the student band entirely.  I don’t think the AD should have the power to stop a student group from supporting a student sports team, but as it is, they do.  My last year at UVa, I had to sit and watch football and basketball and soccer games where there was no band to support the team, and yet I was not allowed to play. I don’t want for that to happen to other students who believe that the UVa band is the UVa band because it is student governed, not because it is endorsed by the athletic department.

[UVa Cavalier Marching Band] [Disclaimer!]