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Reflections on Life. (Hint: It’s Short.)

The past few days have been really busy, including two performances of the UTA Maverick Marching Band’s 40th season without football. (Read all about that HERE and HERE.) Hearing UTA’s new Fight Song after each of those shows reminded me about Dr. Douglas Stotter, the Director of Bands who orchestrated the song for the MMB, and who would have turned 65 years old today had he not passed away suddenly last April. So in his honor, I’ve decided that for this week’s blog post, I will share a piece I wrote for a memory book compiled for his memorial concert last spring.

“I will admit that, when I heard Dr. Douglas Stotter was named Director of Bands at the University of Texas at Arlington back in 2005, I probably wanted to dislike him.

Mind you, I didn’t know him. What I did know was that Phil Clements was the Assistant Director of Bands at UTA from 1994-2004 and had served as Interim Director of Bands in the year following the retirement of Ray C. Lichtenwalter. I had become friends with Phil, both as the Voice of the UTA Marching Band and as President of the UTA Band Alumni Association at the time. And it seemed to me that Phil deserved to be named Director of Bands and have “Interim” taken off his title. When that didn’t happen, I was disappointed, and I may have wanted UTA’s new Director of Bands to be problematic. You know, full of faults and ego, and generally unlikeable. This person should only stick around about 3 years because UTA was merely a stepping stone to his next career objective. That way, whatever disappointment I felt could be justified, and I could wallow in bitterness and self-satisfaction and say “I told you so” about what was happening.

So here comes this guy, Doug Stotter, to my alma mater by way of Indiana University. Someone coming from a high-tone program in the Midwest just might be that person.

But Doug Stotter was the complete opposite of any and all of those horrible things, and he completely doused my disappointment and quelled any bitterness.

Affable. Amiable. Approachable. Self-deprecating. Humorous. Loved music. And I mean, LOVED music. Most of all, loved teaching music, and was great at it. Down-to-earth. Disarmingly nice. Surprisingly understated and composed.

Clearly, UTA was no stepping stone for Dr. Stotter. It was a career destination, sharing his knowledge of and love for music year after year, with quiet wisdom and humility. The music world often embraces loud, boisterous directors with showy conducting styles. I was never in a Doug Stotter ensemble, but I always got the sense from seeing him in front of his students that he didn’t need to yell at anyone, wear conspicuous clothing, or make grand gestures to get his point across. But don’t mistake lack of show for lack of preparation. Dr. Stotter’s ensembles were always prepared, and he conveyed messages clearly through eye contact with the performers, which is probably why he didn’t need grand gestures. His face was telling the performers, “we’ve worked on this, now play it.” He had a reserved acumen, a restrained energy that still projected passion for the music being performed. Love for music doesn’t always need to be shouted, and Doug showed that. The performance of his ensembles speaks to the effectiveness of Dr. Stotter’s teaching, and by that metric, it was remarkable. I didn’t attend every concert, but every time I did, I wondered, “Were we ever that good?” Because Dr. Stotter’s ensembles were SO good. And what turned out to be his final concert was truly sublime, an experience I will never forget.

But countless students can speak better than I can about Dr. Stotter’s love for and approach to music, and the lessons he imparted to his students. What I really value now are the interesting conversations we would always have. Sure, Doug loved music, but he had interests far beyond the world of band. I would typically encounter him the most during the marching season, usually in the pressbox before a UTA show. I was always impressed that Doug remembered my wife and sons and asked how and what they were doing lately. He also had knowledge of and interest in my own career, even though it had moved fair away from the music world. It’s a little ironic that we would see each other at marching band shows and talk about almost anything but marching band. Seriously, how many band directors would you expect to carry on a conversation about economics or educational assessment? One of my favorite MMB memories was the overnight to the Broken Arrow Festival near Tulsa, OK in 2016. The staff and I rode separately in a rented van that Doug drove throughout the trip. We had a stopover outside the Tulsa area for a rehearsal, and Doug and I ended up taking the van to pass some time driving around the area. We talked about a variety of things – sharing college band stories, discussing Kappa Kappa Psi, etc. He asked me about teaching a “traditional” high school class since he wanted my perspective on how it compared to a band class. It was probably only an hour or so, but it was truly engaging conversation. I only wish there was time for more, and I will miss my encounters with Doug immensely.

Thanks for subverting my expectations, Doug. I will always take comfort knowing that you got to conduct an epic concert right before you were called home. RIP”

I find it fitting that UTA hasn’t immediately replaced Dr. Stotter with an Interim Director of Bands and has, instead, enlisted a slate of guest conductors to work with their Wind Symphony throughout 2025-26 for The Dr. Douglas Stotter Artist-In-Residence series. An excellent course of action given the sudden nature of the situation last April.

Here’s a fundamental thing I learned from Dr. Stotter, and certainly in the course of my education career, as well: People Have Value, So Value Them. That doesn’t mean you have to be a super-gregarious extrovert shouting “let’s make a difference.” Just be kind. At his core, Doug Stotter was simply a kind person who wanted to help his students, and who was nice to others. He quietly showed people that he valued them. He happened to do so professionally as a band director, but anyone can achieve the same objective, no matter what their profession is.

Doug’s sudden passing also underscores another important lesson: Hug your loved ones, and let them know that you care. Show appreciation to mentors, colleagues, anyone who has had a positive impact on your life. Life Is Short, and you may not know when it’s the last time you get to speak with someone.

And just for good measure, one additional lesson: Because Life is Short, spend yours doing something you enjoy. I was deeply disturbed and shocked by Doug Stotter’s sudden passing, but I took solace in the fact that he got to do exactly what he loved at perhaps the highest level right before he left this life. And that realization was at least part of the impetus for me to retire from public education. There was no way on this earth that I wanted even a remote possibility that I could pass away in the midst of…testing. No. Way. There were other factors in my decision, but if you’ve read some of my earlier posts, you know how I grew to feel about the testing realm, and it was time to say goodbye. Know when it’s time to say goodbye in your own profession (or personal life), because we won’t always know when it’ll be our time to go.

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40 Years of “The Marching Band Without Football” – Part 1

Last week, I acknowledged that I am a band nerd, and a marching band nerd at that. I also mentioned that I have served as the P.A. Voice of the U.T.-Arlington Maverick Marching Band since 1998. It is fair to state that the UTA Band has shaped my life. I have close friends from UTA to this day, all from my involvement with the band. I was Drum Major there for 5 years (one of only 3 people who served as DM for 5 years), and that partially led to my career in education. I learned leadership skills there that have influenced me throughout my life. I was President of their Kappa Kappa Psi (national honorary band fraternity) chapter for a year and am also a Life Member of the chapter. I was President of the UTA Band Alumni Association for 4 years. I met my wife in the UTA Band. And my P.A. work with the band was the impetus for my voiceover career. You could say band has been instrumental (pun intended, cue rim-shot) in my adult life.

It just so happens that this past weekend was Alumni Day for the Maverick Marching Band (typically referred to as the MMB), where they invite UTA alumni of all eras to come out and take in a brief rehearsal and a preview run of this year’s show. As part of that performance, I got to do a run of my pre- and post-show announcements. This year’s announcements acknowledge that UTA is celebrating its 130th anniversary, but more importantly to me, that this is the 40th season that the UTA MMB is performing without a football team.

If you’re not from the Arlington area, you might not realize or know that U.T.-Arlington has no football team, and if so, it’s likely you also didn’t know that they have a marching band without a team. Yes, it is unusual. 40 years ago, it was unheard of. And that is the purpose of this week’s post — to highlight some of the history that led to UTA cancelling its football program, the genesis of the current iteration of the MMB, and the ebb and flow of the band program through the past 40 years. Yes, it is another 2-parter.

To begin, let’s take a trip back in time to 1956. My parents were celebrating their first wedding anniversary, my oldest sister was born, and in Arlington, TX, the Rebels of Arlington State College won a national championship in football. Specifically, they won the Junior Rose Bowl, at the actual Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, defeating Compton College to win the National Junior College Championship. Then in 1957, ASC won it again. College football in Arlington reached its pinnacle with that back-to-back feat 68 years ago, and it’s been downhill ever since.

A quick rundown of those intervening years: Arlington State became a four-year institution in 1959, playing in NCAA Division II. ASC was a founding member of the Southland Conference in 1964 and actually won the conference championship in 1966 and 1967. The 1967 team was the first to play as U.T.-Arlington instead of Arlington State College after the university moved from the Texas A&M system to the U.T. system. To conclude that 1967 season, the UTA Rebels, as they were called, won their final bowl game in school history – The Pecan Bowl in, of all places, Abilene, TX, at Shotwell Stadium.

Shortly after that Pecan Bowl victory, UTA’s student body began to get restless with the school’s Rebel mascot, its use of “Dixie” as the fight song, and the Confederate battle flag as a school symbol, including on the back of the UTA Rebel Band’s uniforms. The University ultimately changed its mascot to Mavericks in 1971, which it retains today. Along the way, UTA also struggled with stadium issues. Memorial Stadium was its on-campus stadium, with a capacity of 10,000, that was usually full during those winning seasons in the late 1960s. But school officials considered it outdated and wanted a larger venue to move up to a higher level of college football. So UTA began playing at Turnpike Stadium in 1970, which would be renamed Arlington Stadium when the Texas Rangers arrived in 1972. The Rangers took complete control of Arlington Stadium, at which point the Mavericks (also known as the Movin’ Mavs) began playing home games at Cravens Field, a high school facility in Arlington.

In retrospect, it’s clear that the stadium issues may have been the beginning of the end for UTA football. When they played on-campus at Memorial Stadium, the Rebels had a strong following. Move to a bigger venue that happens to be multi-purpose for baseball and football? How about a high school stadium with wooden bleachers? Watch the following and attendance dwindle. String together 9 straight losing seasons from 1970 through 1978. Watch the following and attendance dwindle even more. And as the following and attendance dwindled, football began to lose money. Yet UTA managed to get funding for a new 12,000 seat stadium that opened in 1980 – Maverick Stadium. The inaugural game against North Texas State (now the University of North Texas) saw a crowd of 18,000, with temporary bleachers added – this was fortuitous, since the stadium was designed to expand the width of both grandstands and even add a second deck on the east stands. I was there; it was an amazing crowd. It was actually the first college football game broadcast by fledgling cable network ESPN. So much promise, but UTA lost that opener 31-14 on its way to a 3-8 season in 1980, with its only home win before a crowd of 2,000 on a bitterly cold November night. (I was also there.) Maverick Stadium never saw attendance higher than 9,500 for the rest of UTA football’s history and never averaged more than 8,000 in a season. For a program with big-time aspirations, those kinds of attendance numbers were dismal. The team managed to win the Southland Conference once more, in 1981, but alas, that was the year the SLC champion did NOT earn an automatic bid to the Independence Bowl. No extra revenue or exposure there. The last official UTA football game in Maverick Stadium took place on November 16, 1985, a 29-14 loss to Louisiana Tech in front of 4,800 fans. (Guess who was there that day?) A week later, they concluded the 1985 season with yet another loss at NTSU. Then on November 25, 1985, President Wendell Nedderman announced that the University was cancelling the football program due to poor attendance and massive financial losses.

“Interesting story. The takeaway was that you were a fan of a losing team.” I lived 10 minutes from the stadium and I had four old siblings who went to UTA. And I grew up as a sports fan. OF COURSE I went to the games. But amidst the losses on the field, I found myself more and more intrigued by the band, especially after I started playing saxophone the same fall that Maverick Stadium opened. The UTA Maverick Band was mesmerizing to me. Gigantic sound, great colorguard, and what were considered cool uniforms for the late 1970s and early 1980s. “Tomorrow’s Sound, Today” was theIr nickname, and the band was actually ground-breaking for the time in terms of sound and approach. When Maverick Stadium opened, the east stands (opposite the pressbox) were actually the “home” stands where students sat. The band performed halftime to those stands, then they would play postgame to the pressbox (west) side. I found myself mostly sitting on the west side, so I would stick around for postgame, when the stands were empty and the band was extra LOUD. For a budding band nerd, this was nirvana. I knew I wanted to be a part of it. Once I ascended to drum major of my high school marching band, I had designs on being a drum major of the UTA Maverick Band. The reason I was at the last home game on 11/16/85 was because our band was invited to attend and perform at the game (obviously to put some more people in the stands). I was intent on impressing UTA’s directors with my own command of our group; I have no idea if they even noticed my presence, but I knew involvement in the UTA band was on my radar, for sure.

So when the announcement came down on 11/25/85, I pretty much figured that dream was over, and I was looking at breaking off from my siblings and attending a different school than UTA. Then something unique happened. Ray C. Lichtenwalter, Director of Bands at UTA, sought to continue the marching band in spite of the loss of football, but doing so at great risk. There was a movement among some fans to hold a pep rally in favor of football and opposition to President Nedderman’s decision, and these fans approached Mr. Lichtenwalter in hopes of having the band participate in the rally. Lichtenwalter declined these fans, cooperated with Nedderman’s decision, and instead requested that the University continue funding the marching band as an exhibition band. The fans who wanted the University to reconsider football were livid, and they let him know about it. But where had they been the past decade when UTA football was drawing fewer than 8,000 fans per game? Lichtenwalter was focused on how he could serve his students in a new era for UTA. The idea was that, for Music Education students at UTA, marching band was an integral lab environment where they learned how to construct, teach, and perform a modern marching band show in preparation for teaching high school band. Lichtenwalter justified continuation of the program as an academic pursuit as opposed to simply a spirit group that would naturally disband after the cancellation of football. It was a rather forward-thinking move on the part of Mr. Lichtenwalter, which is unsurprising. Lichtenwalter had taught at UTA since 1967, becoming Director of Bands in 1975. He was the brains behind “Tomorrow’s Sound Today,” modernized uniforms, and a new approach to college band at UTA. Over the previous decade, the UTA Maverick Band had evolved into something interesting and groundbreaking. Pursuing marching band without football as its own creative endeavor was simply the next logical step for the program.

In the spring of 1986, I auditioned and was selected to be one of 2 Assistant Drum Majors on a 3-person team at UTA as they embarked on this unprecedented journey. As a result, I became the 5th of 5 members of the Ponce family to attend UTA in the 1970s and 1980s, and I entered an organization that would influence me in countless ways. But more importantly, the UTA Marching Band, “New Direction,” as it was called, began its own journey that would span more than 4 decades exploring music and how it could be conveyed through the medium of marching band.

Come back tomorrow to read how that journey has unfolded.

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Modern Marching Band: The Magical, the Mundane, and the Remarkable – Part 2

Yesterday, I posted Part 1 on this topic and attempted to scratch the surface of what goes into a given marching band season and why it’s awesome, why it’s magical. Read that post here. TLDR: When you consider everything that goes into learning to play an instrument, spin a flag, march, dance, execute drill design, perfect it, and do it all together…you will find few things that are more satisfying and personally fulfilling.

But guess what? Marching band can also be rather mundane. Consider the following:

  • There’s a football game every week, and at least half of those (more for some schools) involve travel. Riding a bus back to school at 11:00pm on a Friday night when you’re exhausted is not exactly anyone’s definition of fun.
  • There’s a drill team song to learn and perform every week. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with drill team, per se; they work hard just like bands and accomplish impressive things. But that stop-down every Thursday to rehearse with them plus the Friday performance also gets tedious over 10 weeks.
  • Stand tunes can be cool, but they can also wear mighty thin. Seriously, how many times can anyone play “The ‘Hey’ Song” and “Seven Nation Army” without going a little bit crazy? (Although to be fair, “Land of 1,000 Dances” never gets old, IMO.)
  • There are times during the marching season that become an enormous grind. Look at the calendar – we are literally in one of those times today, 9/17/25. When I taught drum major camps, I used to teach everyone this: The DM’s leadership isn’t that essential on the first day of band camp, or at the first performance, or at any contest. Everybody’s pumped for those times. It’s easy. No, the DM is most critical in mid-September, when the temperature is still in the 90s, the band hasn’t performed at any contests yet, the show is mostly learned by now but you’re working on all the parts where the ensemble is struggling, tempers are on-edge, and enthusiasm is low. THAT is when the drum major needs to be at their best, helping the group power through those grinding times.
  • If you have a good football team, marching season can seem to last forever because the season then goes more than 10 weeks.
  • Contests are cool, but they can also be a grind. It’s an entire Saturday gone, and you might have important assignments to complete for classes. Imagine working on homework in the stands while other bands perform because otherwise, it won’t get done. Plus, it might still be warm outside, so you’re sweating almost the entire day. Now imagine doing that every weekend for an entire month.
  • October often features weather that is windy and possibly rainy. This poses many challenges as you’re trying to perfect your show and losing rehearsal time to rain and possibly lightning, or simply struggling in high winds.
  • In all honesty, sometimes the shows themselves are really mundane. Marching band often relies heavily on imitation; everybody wants to do stuff that’s popular in DCI or among the top-tier bands at UIL and BOA competitions. The activity is beholden to trends, sometimes to its detriment. There was a period several years ago, for instance, where it seemed like every show was “Title: Subtitle, in four movements – I. Noun II. Noun III. Noun IV. Noun and Noun.” I would joke that I could simply announce everyone with “Please welcome the Average Suburban High School Marching Band,” and no one would even notice. Thankfully, we’ve moved beyond that phase, and the shows are a bit more imaginative these days.

I could delve into a bit of an old-man rant from this point forward because there are certainly other things that are frustrating about the activity: People often question whether marching band is valuable as music education because so much time is spent working on a limited amount of music rather than expanding students’ repertoire. (There’s an old adage that marching band could be called “Learning to Hate Music, Three Songs at a Time.”) Sometimes what judges reward is more style and less substance, which incentivizes schools to spend more resources on props and other extraneous aspects of the show. There are definitely socioeconomic disparities in marching band. By and large, you will find a strong correlation between the wealthiest schools and the bands that score highest at UIL and non-UIL contests alike. Marching band is awesome, but the activity is far from perfect.

But here’s the thing: In this activity, perfection, in the end, is a goal but not actually an objective. Every band will strive to perfect what they’re performing. None of them will achieve it at a 100% level for 100% of the time. And that’s OK. The act of striving for perfection in a safe and healthy environment, with people you grow to love, in service to music and a product that requires everyone’s involvement, IS the point. Each ensemble begins its season at a certain beginning place and works toward “the perfect place” for 3-4 months, and then it’s over. The journey and the work involved matters more than any result. Some groups will need a new trophy case to hold all their hardware. Good for them. Some groups will just be happy to advance to finals at an invitational, or to UIL Area, or to UIL State. Good for them. Some groups will expect trophies but be unable to capture them, or expect to advance to State and finish as alternates, or not make Area Finals. All for reasons they may not grasp because the judging system is inherently subjective, and their show didn’t receive sufficient points in the right places. It is not the same as losing an athletic contest, because you cannot necessarily watch the film or examine the stats and say “we would’ve won if only…” It’s the nature of competition in competitive marching band, and sometimes it leaves ensembles wondering what-if. There is no shame in that as long as they can look back at how their performance progressed through the season and how the members connected with one another – if you can look back at those things with satisfaction, then the scores do not matter. Sure, it’s disappointing; everyone likes to achieve high scores and win. But years from now you’ll think about the joy of the experience, not tab sheets or trophies.

And the experience should be joyful, because it is remarkable. Regardless of what anyone in their 40s or older may think about the music, the choreography, the props, the amplification, the costumes, or any other aspect of a modern marching band production, what the students accomplish is astounding. I’m in my 50s and marched in the 1980s and 90s. In high school, we primarily marching symmetrical drill on a fairly rudimentary level. In college, the drill was more advanced, and we added basic choreography in places, but none of it was like what you see today. The music, drill, and choreography an audience member will witness at a typical marching band contest these days should boggle their minds. I knew guys 40 years ago who would’ve gotten physically injured trying to do what bands do today. Who couldn’t produce a sound on their instrument marching modern drill. Who would cramp up, seize up, or fold up trying to play the music of the caliber that students perform today.

Music education has advanced, to its credit. The “marching arts,” as many like to call the activity, have also advanced. These are good things. Students get an opportunity to do amazing things and perform on an elite level. “But it’s not like it used to be.” Okay. Whatever. People used to teach band members to “pound the ground” when marking time. “Kill the grass!” They used to teach techniques that are now suspect. They used to haze new members and make them feel terrible and unwanted. Does anyone really think it would be productive or educational to return to those days? And while there are people who live for old-school military bands marching 6-to-5 from end zone to end zone and despise props and microphones and speakers and dance movements, a person’s preference for the kind of show should not detract from the remarkable work the students are accomplishing. Modern military bands are also great. Bands that perform HBCU-style shows are also amazing. Those styles have advanced, as well. Honestly, no matter the particular style of show, the challenge of any marching show from the 20th century pales in comparison to the demands of a modern show, where students might be flying across 40 different spots on the field while doing choreography and maintaining sufficient body control to play with incredible musicality. Complain about the shows, if you want. Respect the performers. Celebrate them. Band students are awesome. Band is still awesome. It’s remarkable.