The Ohio State University Marching Band - Accolades

Accolades

The Ohio State University Marching Band has been honored with The Sudler Trophy for outstanding college band, and in 1988 was featured in a multi-page article in USA Today.

The band has also performed in seven Inaugural Parades. The band represented the State of Ohio during the inaugurations of Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon (1969 and 1973), George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush (2001 and 2005), and Barack Obama (2009).

During the October 6, 2012 football game between University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Ohio State University, the Band performed a tribute to video games, containing music from games such as Pokemon, Super Mario Bros., Halo, Tetris, Pac-Man and The Legend of Zelda. During the performance, the band executed arrangements based on these video games, including a falling set of Tetris blocks, and an animated galloping figure of the horse Epona. A fan's recording of the performance posted to YouTube the next day soon became a viral video, spread in part through video game fans that were directed to the video. The band's interim director at the time, Jon Waters, had planned for the performance based on the national broadcast of the night game, and that the video game theme would resonate with the college students that had grown up with the games. With the widespread attention to the performance, the school promoted Waters from interim to permanent band director.