At every home football game, the Eagle Marching Band strives to get students, faculty, fans and players pumped up.

Eastern’s marching band assistant director Patrick Winters said the marching band works very hard to make Eastern fans ecstatic on game day.

The marching band begins their practices a week before school started at a band camp.

Winter said the week-long band camp goes from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. When school starts, the band practices from 1-3 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This year there were about 100 students at the camp.

“Those kids are all doing that on a volunteer basis, they spend a week with us all day and night and all that preparation, and they all come in early before classes which they don’t have to do,” said Winters. “Our season goes all year. Not the marching band, but then they transition into one of the concert bands, the jazz program or orchestra.”

EWU marching band director Don Goodwin said all that preparation is not necessarily for the football players, but for everyone in the stadium too.

“Most of what we do is geared around making that game day experience more fun and more energetic and more team spirit and all that stuff. We don’t directly talk with the football players all that much…but we do have a great relationship with all the athletics,” said Goodwin. “Coach Baldwin came in and talked to the band and visited with us during band camp.”

Even though the band does not communicate a lot with the football players, they are still connected to them as support. The band makes it their goal to be uplifting during the games no matter the outcome.

“It is a lot more fun for us when they are winning. We hope that we affect the outcome of that too. We make a joke that the marching band is probably worth 7-10 points every game,” said Winters. “We feed off of one another. They do great and we get jacked up, we play loud and hopefully they get jacked up.”

Goodwin said that although they play some traditional songs, they are going to change some things this year.

“We used to play Thriller right at every touchdown, we are not doing that anymore. Of course the fight song is the one you can always count on. Right before our offense comes on the field, we always play the Imperial March from Star Wars,” said Goodwin.

Winters said one of the things they are changing is the visual aspect of the band.

“One of the cool things we are really excited about this year as a new innovation is establishing a color guard. So we have a flag line now, which we haven’t had in more than 10 years. So now we are on the field with a bigger production…the visual aspect should be a lot better,” said Winters.

EWU junior Robyn Bowled is one of two drum majors in the marching band, who also conducts the halftime show. She said her favorite part of the marching band is the relationships she makes with her fellow band members.

“It’s fun, it’s a sense of family for me. We all get so close, and section by section you start goofing off,” said Bowled. “It’s a really good college experience because you have all these people that are into the same exact thing as you, and it’s a togetherness thing.”

EWU sophomore Amanda Tow, who is one of the marchers and in charge of the uniforms, she said she likes the physical tests they must overcome.

“It’s hard and a challenge, but it is fun too. You get a good workout,” said Tow.

Bowled said she also enjoys the achievements and growing as musicians with her band friends.

“The fact that every time we finish a rehearsal we accomplished something more, we’ve improved, we’ve gotten better people, have become better musicians, better marchers and we are all a lot closer after every trial that we faced and conquered,” said Bowled.

Winters said auditions are always going on and they are always accepting new members. He also wanted to stress that auditions are open to all students.

“The marching band is made up of music majors and nonmajors…at least about a third of them are not music majors,” said Winters.

Even with the diverse areas of interest amongst the members of the band, they all know how to have fun.

“We are just a bunch of big goof balls that just like to be all nerdy. We are goofing around, having a good time and making new friends. I think that’s the best part about it,” said Tow.