The band department brought something new to North girls soccer games May 12 when the pep band played during the game. In a normal school year, pep band plays at basketball games.

“When it came time in the winter when we would normally have started our Pep Band season and be playing at home basketball games, the current protocols we had in place for COVID didn’t allow us to play for the entirety of the entire game without having to clear the space out for the HVAC to pull all the air and cleanse it and then come back,” said band director, Kevin Dobbeck.

Due to COVID-19, the band department decided to try something different and play at soccer games instead.

“In our absence, I wanted to make sure that we were still able to be present in the school community and I talked to Coach Harks about bringing the band to a soccer game and he thought it’d be super cool,” said Dobbeck.

However due to scheduling conflicts, the Pep Band only planned to play two games; unfortunately, they had to cancel their first game on May 5 due to rain.

Having the Pep Band at soccer games does come with additional challenges that the band has had to work around. The band has had to learn new rules for soccer games that are different from football or basketball games where they would normally play.

“I’ll talk to the coaches and make sure that we’re on the same page about when we should be playing and when communication could be important and when to have it quiet,” said Dobbeck. “I have a conversation with the referees in the game. And I’m just really clear saying, ‘Hey, I have the band here. We can play as much or as little as you want and so far every time that I’ve had that conversation with the referee they’re just like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is awesome. Play as much as you want.’”’

However, Pep Band only plans to play at soccer games this year.

“This is just kind of a unique thing to this year and we fully expect to be back at normal home basketball games next year for both boys and girls,” concluded Dobbeck.