"Aquarius" and the allure of tradition

 

I often talk about how much I enjoy being the public address announcer for various athletic teams and organizations at Wickliffe Upper School, which used to be "Wickliffe High School" and which I still often unconsciously refer to as "Wickliffe High School."

I'm in my 13th year as the announcer for the Wickliffe Swing Band. That's what we call our marching band, which isn't a traditional marching band but rather a "swing band" that incorporates a lot of energetic movement into its routines.

This swing style has been around for more than 50 years. Elements of it began to be incorporated in the early 1970s under the tutelage of legendary director Chuck Frank. It became the dominant style under the equally legendary Michael Elias, who was the director at Wickliffe when Terry and I were students there.

The swing style is so ingrained into the band's culture and sense of self that it would be almost unthinkable for the group to revert to being a more drill-oriented marching band.

I've heard that when the last few Wickliffe directors interviewed for the job, they were all told point blank they would be required to maintain the swing style. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, it doesn't surprise me.

If someone in Northeast Ohio happens to know anything at all about the Wickliffe Swing Band, it's usually that the band's longstanding signature routine is set to the song "Aquarius" from the 1967 musical "Hair."

POINT OF CLARIFICATION: We call the tune "Aquarius," but what the Wickliffe band plays is actually a mini-medley from "Hair" that combines two songs: "Aquarius" and "The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In)." Few people these days know or even care about the distinction, but I thought I would mention it.

The Wickliffe Swing Band plays "Aquarius" every year. Year after year. For half a century. It always caps off their halftime performance at the homecoming football game, and it's their finale at every band festival.

The key moment in "Aquarius" is pictured at the top of today's post. The percussion section creates a little pyramid in which two bass drummers stand on their heads, two tenor drummers rest their instruments on the bass drums, and a cymbal player stands on top of that pyramid and bangs the cymbals together repeatedly while the rest of the band plays the soaring "Let the Sunshine In" chorus.

It's a bit risky. The cymbal player has to have a certain degree of leg strength to get to the top of the pyramid, as well as a good sense of balance to stay up there while playing.

I've watched this routine performed on muddy grass and pristine turf fields. In bright sunshine and cold drizzle. Probably 100 times or more in the last 40 years. I've never seen anyone in the pyramid hurt themselves, but it always concerns me.

The audience reaction to the "Aquarius" pyramid is predictable and enjoyable. There is loud applause and cheering, particularly from band members and parents from other schools. It's a fun and unique moment.

As I said, for many, it's what defines the Wickliffe Swing Band.

On the other hand...

I'm in the press box when "Aquarius" is played, so I'm often privy to somewhat different reactions. While there are still cheers and clapping, I also get to hear from those who aren't big fans of "Aquarius."

These are often band directors and music educators from other schools who have seen the routine many times. They occasionally say to me, in a semi-whisper with somewhat raised eyebrows and a derisive tone, "You guys are still playing that? When will you retire it?"

I never know what to say in response to these comments, but I understand them.

Some of these press box critics see "Aquarius" as a cheap novelty ploy for applause and cheers. Maybe they're jealous, or maybe they have a point.

Others wonder what students learn if they play the same song and perform the same types of routines year after year. And again, maybe they have a point.

Don't get me wrong: I still love "Aquarius." I love hearing the appreciative comments and seeing the positive reactions on social media. I'm proud to be a Wickliffe alumnus and a lifelong resident of the city. The response to "Aquarius" gives me immense satisfaction.

But I encounter these "give it a rest already" people far more often than I ever tell band staff, parents and students. Believe me, for every 10 people standing and applauding, there is at least one other person rolling their eyes.

It makes me ponder how the band should balance maintaining its cherished traditions on one hand and expanding students' musical horizons and helping them become more well-rounded musicians on the other.

I don't have the answer, nor is it my place to make any real decisions. I'm just the guy behind the mic. I work for the director, and I like it that way.

What I do know is, if a new director ever comes in and decides to retire "Aquarius," I may also be needed to step in and protect that person from the mob of Wickliffians who will inevitably storm the school in support of their favorite Swing Band routine.

(If you'd like to see "Aquarius" performed, this is what it looked like at halftime of the 2023 homecoming football game. The video, which will open in a new window, should start right at the mid-song percussion break just before the pyramid is formed.)

Facebook has put a big dent into class reunions, and maybe that's not a bad thing

One of the biggest mistakes I made in high school was running for and holding a class officer position.

I was treasurer of our class for, I think, three of the four years of high school. This turned out not to be the best move because (a) I wasn't especially dedicated to the job, relative to the other activities in which I participated, and (b) It came with a lifelong commitment to organize class reunions of which I was wholly ignorant.

There are high school reunions that get planned and executed by non-class officers all the time. But more often than not, I would say, the officers are at least involved if not outright leading the effort.

Thus, once every five years I start hearing from classmates asking if we're going to have a reunion for that particular post-graduation milestone. I think we've done something, formal or informal, at every 5-year increment since we left Wickliffe High School in 1988.

The last one we did was our 30th in the summer of 2018. Attendance was so-so, but those of us who were there had a great time.

There are many reasons why people don't attend reunions, not the least of which is that they didn't particularly enjoy their high school years or their classmates, or both. Others really don't like the way they look or have other motives for staying away, which is obviously perfectly fine.

The most common thing I hear is, "I keep up with the people I want to keep up with and don't really need to see anyone else."

Which, again, is completely fine.

Another big factor in lackluster reunion attendance is social media, and here I'm thinking specifically of Facebook.

At least half if not more of my 160+ classmates are on Facebook, and those are generally the people whose lives I know the most about.

I enjoy the opportunity to sit down and talk with them face to face, but it's not like I need that time to find out if they're married, if they have kids, what those kids are up to, where they've living, where they're working, etc.

For the most part, I already know that stuff thanks to Mark Zuckerberg's online creation.

If people want to continue having face-to-face get-togethers every half-decade, the other class officers and I will continue to arrange them.

But if we get to the point that everyone decides they've had their fill of the folks whose photos are next to theirs in the yearbook, I'll admit having one less thing on my plate – even if it's very occasional – isn't the worst thing in the world.

I am the PA guy, hear me roar

If you have a Twitter account, you know you don't have much space to describe yourself in that little bio box. We're allotted 160 characters to tell our life stories to the world, so generally speaking, whatever someone puts there is probably pretty important to them.

Nearly half the characters in my Twitter bio are taken up by this phrase: "PA announcer for
@WickliffeHS band, soccer, volleyball and hoops."

For the last few years, I've had the golden opportunity to be on the microphone for all of those activities at my alma mater, Wickliffe High School. This past fall was my sixth as the Wickliffe Swing Band announcer, while I'm in the midst of my third season as the PA voice for the four sports (girl basketball, boys basketball, girls soccer, and volleyball).

Much like offensive linemen and U.S. vice presidents, public address announcers are doing their job when you forget they're there. The less we're noticed, the better.

I've been doing it just long enough to know the most important thing about sports PA announcing, and that is this: You are not the show. You are not the reason people came to the field/gym that day. You are merely there to amplify the efforts of those young athletes and ensure that those in the stands understand what is happening. Anything else is showboating.

I'm increasingly coming to understand that the less I say, the better.

Because, you know, the temptation once someone puts a live mic in your hand is to over-talk. When you do that, it's just a constant stream of words the crowd will soon tune out.

Remember: Amplify and clarify. If you're thinking of saying something that doesn't accomplish one or both of those things, you probably shouldn't say it. Silence really is sometimes golden.

I love PA announcing. I absolutely love it. And I'm still learning how to do it. Cadence, inflection, flow, volume, distance from the mic. Those are all things at which I want to improve, and all things the best announcers do well almost instinctively.

The best PA announcer I've ever come across was Ray Milavec. Mr. Milavec was not only one of my 10th grade English teachers, but also a coach, athletic director, and PA guy at Wickliffe. He was at one time the PA voice of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, and after retirement served a number of seasons in the same capacity with the minor-league baseball Lake County Captains.

One time, during the first football game of my senior year, Mr. Milavec made sure the announcers from the local cable access TV station said my name correctly on air, and even told them that I also ran track. He didn't have to do that, but he did, because he believed in making sure student-athletes got the credit he thought they deserved.

Not that you have to do this, but if you fast-forward to the 2:03:39 mark of this video, you can hear the results of Mr. Milavec's efforts on my behalf:

Mr. Milavec was a legend. This is off-topic, but I'm starting a scholarship for Wickliffe High School students in his memory (he died of stomach cancer a few years ago). More details on that in early 2020.

Anyway, my point is, while I love PA announcing, and while I believe I have a certain natural ability to do it, I am far from expert. It is a craft like anything else, and every game I try and get a little better at it.

One of the challenges for me comes when I announce basketball. I don't like to announce a foul until I see the ref confirm the player on whom the foul is called, even when it's obvious to me and everyone else who committed the infraction.

But by waiting for it to be official, I also lose valuable seconds during which I'm supposed to announce who committed the foul, how many fouls that person has in the game, what number team foul it is, who's shooting free throws, and how many shots they're taking.

All of that is supposed to happen before the ref hands the shooter the ball, because once the ball is in the shooter's grasp, my instructions are to be quiet. You don't want to distract someone trying sink a free throw in front of hundreds of people in a hot gym.

Sometimes I do it all on time, sometimes I have to cut myself off before relaying all the details, and sometimes I have to wait until after the shot to finish announcing the particulars. (And sometimes, admittedly, I am still talking when the shooter has the ball.)

It's an art as much as it is a science.

There's also the matter of how enthusiastically you announce the accomplishments of the home team vs. how enthusiastically you do it for the visitors.

Many announcers will scream about their own school and sound like they're announcing the death of a family member when a visiting athlete scores.

At the professional level, I get it. That's OK. But in scholastic sports? I don't agree with it. Yes, I will announce a Wickliffe kid louder than a visiting kid, but the difference is relatively slight. When it comes to 15-, 16-, and 17-year-old athletes, I think they all deserve recognition, no matter what color jersey they're wearing.

Like I said, it's an art. Few hard-and-fast rules, but plenty of ways to screw it up.

Right now, the only Wickliffe sports I don't announce are football and boys soccer. Those are handled by Gary Willis, a veteran announcer from whom I've learned quite a bit in terms of preparation and other small tricks of the trade. Gary is a great guy and longtime Wickliffe sports booster, so as far as I'm concerned, he can keep doing those two sports as long as he wants. I'll sub for him whenever he's unavailable, but he has the right to keep doing it for many more years. He has earned that.

Still, I won't lie: Someday I want to add football and boys soccer to my resume, at which point, yes, I'll have the Wickliffe PA announcing monopoly. I met a guy from Beachwood who does that (all sports AND the band), and he is quite frankly my hero.

But I think my three-point shot call is a little better than his. Just saying.

What we did right with each of our kids - Part III - Jared

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My son Jared, now 18, was as tall as me when he was 12 or 13 years old. This isn't saying much as I'm of exceedingly average height (5-9½, thank you very much), but now that he has topped out at around 6-1, "tall" is one of his defining characteristics.

There are many people taller than Jared, of course, but for our family, he's a giant.

Speaking of which – true story – one time when was about 10, he was playing soccer and one of the players on the opposing team urged his teammates to "cover the giant," referring to Jared. Every once in a while, Terry or I will exclaim, "Cover the giant!" And the other one will chuckle appreciatively.

For many years, Jared was my Man Child. He looked older than he really was up until high school, at which point he looked like someone who was exactly where they should be. Now, as high school winds down for him, he looks to me like someone trying to figure out where he belongs next.

Which is perfect. That's what you should be doing when you're 18.

Here are five things I'd like to think Jared's mother and I did right for him:

(1) We let him be who he is. Jared is a quiet guy. He talks to people now more than he used to, but he is still widely known as The Quiet Tennant. And that's fine. Jared is who he is, and any attempt to make him seem more outgoing would have been disingenuous and ultimately unfair. (By the way, he and I have always talked a lot. If you know Jared only in passing, you might be surprised to learn he is one of the funniest people I know. He has a dry sense of humor that just kills me.)

(2) We encouraged him to kick a football. In the grand scheme of things, the three years Jared spent as a kicker for the Wickliffe High School football team may seem unimportant. And yes, he will undoubtedly do far more important things in his life. But the experience of putting on the shoulder pads and playing under the lights every Friday night was one he'll never forget, I'm sure. He got there largely on his own. No one sought him out to kick. As a freshman, he asked the coach what he needed to do to become a kicker. He found out where he needed to be and when, and he showed up. He found what he needed to learn, and he learned it. All on his own. No kicking coach or anything, just Jared. Let's hear it for personal initiative.

(3) We let him destroy our garage with hockey pucks. OK, we did't let him do this, but to Terry's credit, she has kept herself from killing Jared for putting a variety of dents in our garage door and gouges in our garage walls. Jared never played organized hockey, but I played living room and driveway hockey with him when he was a lot younger, and to this day his love of the sport continues to grow. When I think back to my own sports experiences with my dad, most of the memories revolve around attending Indians games and watching Friday night boxing matches together. I hope that one day for Jared, one of his memories of his dad will be watching, playing and talking about hockey. It's our thing, as is a shared love for Cleveland sports.

(4) We told him what he should do and watched when he chose to ignore our advice. The older he gets, the more The Boy seems to follow our teaching (sometimes grudgingly). But over the years, he has more than once gone his own direction, often with less-than-desirable results. I'll say it again: There is value in screwing up. Let it happen.

(5) We taught him he is loved. Jared is not an outwardly affectionate guy. He will occasionally hug his mother, but it's not an everyday thing. Still, in everything he has done, and in every decision he has made, we tried to make it clear that we loved him no matter what. I think he gets that concept in his head for now. Someday he'll understand it in his heart, too.