The Spirit of the West has got the vim

Every Saturday home game — affectionately known as Caturday — most Bobcat fans start the day and express their school spirit by dressing on theme, drinking and making their way to Bobcat Stadium to cheer on their team.

At the same time — or often earlier — more than 200 members of MSU’s marching band, Spirit of the West (SOTW), wake up and start their own gameday rituals.

Junior and SOTW Drum Major Hannah Giese said that the band starts their day bright and early with what they call “uniform hour.” Then, SOTW will play multiple performances each gameday — including the bobcat prowl, in select tailgates in the parking lots and in the press box — all before the pregame show begins.

“A lot of people say their core experience in SOTW is their first pregame show, or their first game day,” Giese said. 

The SOTW starts each game off with the pregame show, which is the same every year and every game according to senior Drum Major Jack Staton. After the pregame performance, the band goes up to the stands and comes down later for halftime.

“We typically do one to two new halftime shows per year,” Staton said. 

He said SOTW promises a new halftime show for this homecoming. “I’m really excited, we're doing a 40-years of Nintendo show,” he said. According to him, the band is doing some highlights from classic games like Mario, Legend of Zelda and Tetris.

“The band adds so much to the gameday atmosphere,” Giese said. “It's such an awesome experience.” 

The whole band does a lot of work to prepare for their performances. According to Band Director Nathan Stark, SOTW starts their semester about a week and a half before the rest of classes. 

“Theres a lot of conditioning that we do — uniform fittings, learning music [and] a lot of marching techniques," Stark said. “There’s a whole different technique that we're supposed to be using that isn't just walking. We wear bright metallic gold shoes, so it's pretty obvious if somebody isn't stepping with the right foot.”

According to Staton, the team calls these practices “band camp.”

“It's sometimes 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. — music, marching, all that,” he said.  

After band camp the practices don't stop, however they are built into the members’ schedules by way of blocked off class time every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The class is one of the only variable-credit courses on campus. “Obviously the hours don't work out with the credit load, but you're doing all this work for us, the least we can do is throw you a credit or two,” Stark said.

According to Giese, there are minimal requirements to join the band. 

“If you played in high school, and you heard about the marching band, you can join,” Giese said. “We’ll teach you everything else.”

According to Stark, there is not even a grade point average requirement to being enrolled in the marching band. 

“We have fought [a requirement] because there are some students who — if it weren't for the marching band — they would not be attending MSU,” he said. “If they can be in the band, that is something that keeps them coming to campus, and somebody's checking up on them.”

Stark said that in every event the SOTW plays, they try to bring “vim.” 

“It’s from our fight song, we have a lyric, ‘We've got the vim, we're here to win,’” he said. “Vim is kind of an old-school word, but it just means robust energy.”

According to Stark, MSU had a big campaign on campus about vim a few years ago. 

“Everybody was wearing these vim t-shirts, and we spelled vim out on the field. And we actually kept it going,” he said. 

This season, if you happen to be viewing the band from the stands, you can see members spell out vim with their bodies as they perform.

Giese played the mellophone for SOTW for two years before becoming a drum major this year. According to her, the drum majors are the highest students in the chain of command.

She said she views her leadership position as a position of service to the school and to the band. “It's super rewarding, it’s a lot of work but I knew that going in,” she said. 

“The community and the friends you make — you can't find it anywhere else,” she said. “We're really close as a band, because of the culture that we have.”

For more information about SOTW, check out its instagram @msusotw. You can catch SOTW this Saturday morning at the Homecoming Parade before the game at 8:30 p.m.