Sweat drips down my face, beading on my forehead and cheeks, chest heaving from the exertion of the past ten minutes. I stare at the Kibbie Dome ceiling just below the blazing lights and beam with a fierce passion in my eyes. I hold my position, muscles tight and ready to spring into action at any moment.
I am not a soccer player. I am not a football player. I am not on spirit squad.
I am on the color guard of the Vandal Marching Band. And I am no less of an athlete than anyone else who takes the Kibbie Dome field.
According to website of Winter Guard International, the governing body of the indoor version of color guard, color guard is “a combination of the use of flags, sabers, mock rifles and other equipment as well as dance and other interpretive movement.”
I have participated in this activity for six years now and while many think things like dance, cheer and color guard aren’t sports, I’m here to make the case otherwise.
According to dictionary.com, a sport is “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.” Let’s break this down a little bit.
An athletic activity:
Color guard requires physical exertion. In order to improve, many participants exercise regularly, targeting muscle groups in the arms and legs and improving flexibility. This allows members to toss their equipment higher and perform more complicated moves.
Requiring skill or physical prowess:
In order to perform in color guard, members must learn basic dance skills, marching skills and ways to handle equipment. There are a variety of skills associated with each type of equipment and members must learn these skills and perform them well in order to prevent injury.
Often of a competitive nature:
Color guards perform nearly year-round due to the presence of four competitive seasons. Fall season is devoted to performing with marching bands, winter season is devoted to creating indoor shows independent of marching bands, spring season varies by location and summer is devoted to drum corps, a prestigious competitive level that dedicated members pursue of their own accord.
Do you want to base the definition of sport off the requirement for physical exertion? When I finish a run-through of a show, I am gasping for breath, heart rate elevated and limbs shaking. My muscles are sore for days after particularly rigorous portions of the season.
What about the possibility for injury? I have sustained four concussions from color guard alone. I have dropped equipment on my face. I have torn nails and bled all over a floor during competition without noticing until I completed my performance. Friends have broken bones, dislocated joints, strained muscles… I could go on and on.
Is action, emotion and drama more your cup of tea? I invite you to watch a color guard show. Don’t half-watch it. Actually pay attention to what you’re seeing. Look at the emotion of the performers, watch how complicated the moves they perform are. The people on those floors put their everything onto their respective stages. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and want desperately nothing more for you to pay attention, pay attention, pay attention, look at us, see us, understand us.
I know why we aren’t considered a sport. Most people don’t consider anything that could be classified as an art to be anywhere within the realm of sports. The general public has less of an interest in paying money to see a color guard perform than to see a football game, in my experience — at least in my hometown west of Seattle.
Most people only see color guard during halftime, but that’s not all we do. Color guards can perform at competitions most weekends during each of their seasons. We perform in parades, with and without marching bands. We are constantly working, constantly performing and improving. I want people to see us for more than just a thing to distract them between halves of a football game.
The efforts of my team — both past and present — are worthy of respect. It is worthy of attention, funding and love. We love what we do, we’re passionate about our performances and we want nothing more than to share what we do with the world.
Alexis Van Horn can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @AlexisRVanHorn