By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Long before Jon Waters arrived at Bowling Green to take over as director of the Falcon Marching Band, BGSU had made his mark on him.
When he was a child, his father, a BGSU graduate, brought him to a football game at BGSU. They saw the Falcon Marching Band, then directed by Mark Kelly, who led the band for 28 years.
“I was enamored,” the Elmore native said during a recent talk to the Bowling Green Kiwanis Club. “It’s been a long journey since.”
That included a trip back to campus to attend Buckeye Boys State. By then he switched from saxophone to tuba in hopes of playing in The Ohio State band.
The Boys State band didn’t have any piccolo players, and they were performing John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” with its signature piccolo solo.
No problem, he told the director. He would play the solo on tuba. When he finished, the audience was chanting “tuba! tuba! tuba!” he recalled. ““I felt like I had thrown a touchdown pass.”
His marching band journey did take him to Ohio State where he dotted the “i.” And he stayed there working for the marching band, before being appointed as director in 2012.
He started innovating from the beginning. Gone was the routine of an announcement a tune, and announcement, a tune.
“I want to weave a story naturally and musically,” Waters said.
So, the band played snippets of songs, and kept on the move. That includes having the entire band portraying Michael Jackson moonwalking.
“When I was Ohio State the concession stands were empty at half time,” he claimed. “Sales were down 75 percent.”
Then, he added, “that’s where the trouble began.”
That was his only reference to his trouble at OSU.
Waters’ tenure as director was brief. A parent complained about the sexualized atmosphere in the band. Traditions like students marching in the stadium at midnight in their underwear predated Waters, but he was accused of not stopping them.
He was fired, and several years of lawsuits ensued.
Waters ended up at Heidelberg where, according to former Mayor Dick Edwards he took the marching band from 5 to 100.
Then last July at the instigation of College of Musical Arts Dean Bill Mathis, Waters arrived at BGSU. Some fans from OSU still cheer him on and donate money to the Falcon Marching Band.
He asked Mathis how many students were enrolled in marching band. About 100. He “beat the bushes” and ended up with 210.
“He reenergized the band and got them pointed in a whole new direction,” Edwards said.
That comes just in time for the band’s 100th anniversary.
[RELATED: BGSU to celebrate 100 years of University Bands at Homecoming]
From his first days as director, Waters contacted students to get their input on half time shows. “When the students involved, they are really invested.”
This year the band has ballooned to almost 300. Pretty much as many uniforms as are available. Waters quipped they have plenty of orange and brown spray paint.
And the band will also be getting new Sousaphones thanks to a bit of gamesmanship. When President Rodney Rogers came to get a photo taken with the band, they equipped him with a Sousaphone, though not one of the better ones. The president commented that the horn had seen better days, then asked: “How much does one of these cost?”
The university helped get new instruments, but the band will pay them back. It will announce a fundraising drive this weekend during Homecoming activities. The band will be a focal point. The theme is Marching Forward.
It will participate in a band concert Friday night 7:15-8 p.m. on the Bowen-Thomson Quadrangle, and then at the football game with Ohio University on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. There will also be an alumni band reunion on Saturday with the graduates joining the band during the half time show.
While performing at the football games will remain in important function for the Falcon Marching Band, Waters said he wants to take it beyond.
In 2025 the marching band will represent the United States in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland.
“We have an opportunity with the BG Marching Band to be beyond football,” he told Kiwanis. “That’s my goal in the coming years.”
He feels he has the foundation on which to do that with strong student leadership team and high school juniors and seniors eager to sign up for band.
And there’s strong support for the band including he said from friends from his days at OSU.
His philosophy is “tradition through innovation.”
“Today’s innovations become tomorrow’s traditions,” Waters said. Excellence is baked into the FMB’s DNA.
“The Falcon Marching Band provides blank canvas to innovate,” Waters concluded. The aim is to be on “the leading edge, to go from excellence to eminence.”
