In the week prior to school you can find 300-plus students marching up and down Demonstration Field sweating, beet red from the sun, some of us bleeding and bruised from our instruments. We put in more hard work than any organization on campus except the athletic teams. In fact, if we had our choice, we’d be included under that header. There is no group of students more proud to be Spartans and wear green and white than the Spartan Marching Band.

You might think a few sequins worn by our hardworking Color Guard are degrading, but the members and former members I have been in contact with today feel degraded by the commentary that suggests we are anything less than what we strive to be.

Spartan Marching Band Director John T. Madden puts his heart and soul into making us the best and we literally put in the sweat of our brows and the blood of our bodies to put on a show both the university and us can be proud of every single day.

Unfortunately, I can’t say I would expect anything less from someone who believes that the Fighting Irish would have a Scots Guard.

I’d like to say you should take some time and try to imagine what it is like to be us, but unless you put in the work, put on that uniform, march to and from the stadium and end the night singing “Shadows” in four-part harmony, you will never know what true Spartan pride really is.

Sarah Schultz, 2006 MSU graduate and 2003-05 Spartan Marching Band member