Marching Band
The Marching Wildcats are a 325 member unit that includes instrumentalists, the Sophisticat Flag Corps and the 14 Karat Gold dancers. Known as "The Pride," the band is under the direction of a Bethune-Cookman alumnus and former Marching Wildcat, Donovan Wells.
The 14 Karat Gold dancers are featured performers in all engagements of the Marching Wildcats and occasionally perform as a solo act. The 14 Karat Gold dancers can be seen frequently in BET video clips promoting Black colleges. The Sophisticat Flag Corps blends traditional flag techniques with innovative choreography to create highly entertaining presentation.
- Performances
The Marching Wildcats perform pre-game and halftime shows at all home games of the Fighting Wildcats football team. Games played in neutral sites where Bethune-Cookman University is deemed the home team, The Pride also performs a traditional pre-game show.
| Donovan Wells | Director of College Bands |
| James Poitier | Associate Director and Arranger |
| Pedro Orey | Assistant Director and Percussion Instructor |
| Ernest Hamilton | Auxiliary Instructor |
| Horatio Walker | Announcer |
The Pride has been featured in numerous events, including televised performances. On January 26, 2008, the band performed in its fifth Honda Battle of the Bands showcase of HBCU bands in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia as the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference representative. In December 2005, a small group of The Pride's percussion section filmed a commercial unveiling the new Cadillac DTS. The commercial made its debut in February 2006 and continued air play throughout the rest of the year. Immediately following the band's January 2005 performance at the Honda Battle of the Bands, the event's producers nominated The Pride to be featured in the Super Bowl special episode of the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. "The Pride" also made an appearance in the 2002 film Drumline.
Read more about this topic: Bethune-Cookman University
Famous quotes containing the words marching and/or band:
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Where are the captains that govern mankind?
What tears down a tree that has nothing within it?
A blast of wind, O a marching wind,
March wind, and any old tune,
March march and how does it run.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)