INDIANAPOLIS — The Greenfield-Central High School Cougar Pride marching band won the Class B ISSMA State Championship, returning to the top of the podium for the third time under director Chris Wing.
The band’s six-month journey began in May when this iteration of the band met for the first time with a senior class hungry to make it back to the top of the mountain after experiencing the band’s last championship in 2021 as freshmen.
“We were on a revenge tour is what it feels like,” senior drum major Lillian Frieden said. “It was a great feeling to come back this year, out of the blue, and show that, no, Greenfield is where it’s at.”
The show, “Any Way the Wind Blows,” came together quickly over the final few weeks of preparation as the members of the band and guard mastered the difficult drill they were taught.
“A couple of weeks ago, even three weeks ago, we couldn’t do this,” Wing said. “Well, we couldn’t complete it. The last few weeks they have just really worked hard, and we’ve watched light bulbs turn on for kids. We’ve seen kids that, three weeks ago, we wondered if they would get here, and today they were lights out.”
Inspired by the final line of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the show featured skills and choreography that few bands and color guards would ask their students to attempt, from partnered choreography between the guard and battery to under-leg rifle catches to bouncing melodies from end zone to end zone during the show’s third movement.
Despite that difficulty, though, the band responded, with students as young as the eighth grade coming together over the course of the season to put everything together.
“There’s no reason that they should be able to achieve at the level they are, except for the fact that they just don’t know any better than to just work hard,” Wing said. “Someday they’ll be able to look back and say, ‘I can’t believe I did that when I was an eighth grader,’ but right now, they’re just a little bit blind with ignorance. They just do it because everybody else around them was doing it.”
Following a community showcase Friday night and a final rehearsal on Saturday, the band set out for downtown Indianapolis.
As the band assembled its instruments, moved equipment into Lucas Oil Stadium and warmed up for its final performance, a focus came over the group as it prepared for competition.
Once on the field, cheers roared out over the crowd as parents and fans of the Cougar Pride began waving signs and chanting while the band marched out.
Each movement went to plan, complete with instrumental and guard solos, as the band marched on toward the end of the show and massive constructed dandelions lit up one by one across the field, the show ending on a final repetition of “any way the wind blows” as a yellow dandelion prop was lifted at midfield, signaling the Cougar crowd to let out one last roar.
After the final two bands of the division performed, all 10 returned to the field for awards. After seven bands heard their names called, a surprising announcement rang out over the public address system alerting bands and fans that there was a tie for second place. The Cougar Pride prepared to hear its name called as one of the two runners-up after coming in third in semi-state, but when the second name rang out as Greenwood, not Greenfield, the sea of blue assembled just inside the 35-yard line began to bustle excitedly as it realized only one name remained, and a cheer went up from the band as Greenfield-Central High School was announced as the 2024 state champs.
Parents and fans celebrated from the stands, a roar going out as parents could be seen tearing up in elation. After two years of disappointment, the Cougar Pride was back on top.
Even in victory, though, Wing reminded his students that while the victory felt great, it wasn’t the decisive opinions of the judges that ultimately mattered.
“Judges are judges, and they have opinions, sometimes it works in our favor and sometimes it doesn’t,” Wing told the band in the parking lot following the awards ceremony. “You decided at 3:20 that that was good enough, that’s what you should always remember. As soon as you let someone else’s value of you change your value of yourself, you’re losing. You will never be successful because you know what your best capabilities are, and you do that everywhere. You do it at school, you do it at work, you do it at home, you do it in band. That’s the lesson.”
