Goodbye Shocker Sound?

[Singeril]

I agree that the Athletic Department needs to foot more if not all of the bill...and not cut back on the band or change its nature just because it has to get involved. I should have added to my earlier comment...the SGA does provide some funding...but not all of it. The salary for the grad assistant conductor comes out of College of Fine Arts funding. If the College of Fine Arts has to pony up, why shouldn't the Athletic Department?

[Ricardo del Rio]

LOL at thinking the WSU SGA has an ideological connection with tea party types. Try the polar opposite of political inclination.

I agree with SHOCKvalue. I can almost guarantee that the SGA is a nest of liberals.

[SHOCKvalue]

Fun to watch those of you who start off your post by saying, "Well, back in MY day SGA was a phenomenal organization...".

Forgive me for asking, but why is Shocker Sound not a part of the Athletic budget? The board is so quick to jump on SGA as a scapegoat I don't think anyone's thought of why they're being funded by students in the first place. If anything, let's raise arms about our athletic apartment not funding something that many posters have concluded would be under $100k. I think they can find a way.

What's weird is that I went to the SGA website to hopefully pull some documentation to see where exactly the money, that which you compel by mandate from the student body, is flowing. Unsurprisingly, in the "Public Record" section of the SGA website, there are absolutely zero documents available for public perusal, even though the template wording for each page gives effect that there should be downloadable material available under the various headings. There's absolutely nothing, where once there was.

This discussion about how best to allocate SGA funding (and by extension, Shocker Sound) is rendered moot when the SGA is not sharing public information. Sure, anyone of us could file a FOIA, but why should we have to?

Public disclosure is just not a thing with the current SGA admin, apparently. Not exactly shocking, given the MO of the current leadership. Transparency is to be considered an enemy, by such types.

[ShockerFever]

What in the **** is going over there?

[BlkSaxShock]

I think the fans know what we have. Its the SGA that apparently doesn't know.

True, most fans know what we have and appreciate it, but already some on this forum are flippant toward what goes into making a pep band great and obviously dont care or are willing to see a change. I can tell you that this change would bot be good.

[pie n eye]

I agree with SHOCKvalue. I can almost guarantee that the SGA is a nest of liberals.

Sorry, all! I couldn't help myself. I edited out that part of my comment.

[Cdizzle]

If the College of Fine Arts has to pony up, why shouldn't the Athletic Department?

Because it is a student activity, not an athletic activity?

[pie n eye]

Come on Athletic Department. This is an opportunity to make yourself look good for once.

Just stop being assholes and fund shocker sound. You can raise sponsor money for dumb **** like where's wu. Surely business would be willing to sponsor Shocker Sound brought to you by (fill in the blank sponsor).

[SHOCKvalue]

What is the funding source precedent at other schools for their pep bands? Athletics? School of Fine Arts or Music? Student government/senate/whatever-they-want-to-call-it?

[Cdizzle]

You can raise sponsor money for dumb **** like where's wu. Surely business would be willing to sponsor Shocker Sound brought to you by (fill in the blank sponsor).

Perhaps this is the best idea. Corporate sponsorship. Then we could hear the band more.

[Singeril]

You are definitely right but I think you and I both know we could sight read that book in our sleep and still play at a high level :)

But without rehearsing together as a unit consistently and well, the band would not sound as if it was playing together at a high level. The band needs to be a LOT more than the sum of its parts.

[Cdizzle]

The band needs to be a LOT more than the sum of its parts.

In a pep band playing 25-or-6 to 4? Meh. Not that much.

[jazztrane]

Wow this is shocking. There are enough band alum's and bball fans who appreciate the band they're really going to catch hell when this gets out. Back in my day I think we got a $300 stipend, I'm sure its more now but I still can't image the total cost is that much (plus access to the games is worth a lot more now than during the Cohen era).

[Eric]

30+ years ago competition was fierce to get in. The best of the best made it. I can see how it might appear to be a "community" band, because some of those music majors had been undergrads for many many years.

[ShockBand]

The pep band was very much a student dominated group when I played in the late 80s, and had very high expectations of attendance. If you couldn't play a game, you had to find an adequate sub, and the small stipend ($200 I think) was not paid until after the season and all obligations were adequately met. The director has been a grad assistant, stipend paid by the School of Music, for as long as I can remember. The Dave Johnson commercials on the radio broadcasts still use those old recordings of the fight songs we made in the 80s for background music. We were a VERY musically talented group.

It started migrating to more of a "community" type band in the 90s when the product on the floor fell off in quality and student interest waned. I know, because I played off and on up until the early 2000s without being an enrolled student, and there were several others like that. Some may have still been taking a class or two, but a few like me did not.

All that said, it is best if it is a student group. Why SGA is balking on funding now baffles me, as Shocker Sound is one of the most visible organizations on campus in terms of public notice. It is also kind of the "front porch" of the WSU Bands, and that is why having the School of Music fund the grad assistant stipend makes good sense. The remaining costs of band member stipends (which shouldn't be gigantic, basically an offset to missing some part time job income), uniforms, music, the handful of instruments that are provided, and travel to the conference tournaments (not including NCAA travel, that can be handled from tournament revenue) probably would be no more than that $40,000 figure mentioned earlier. For an entity with such public notice, that cost is very reasonable.

I will certainly be watching this closely and will start asking questions of those I know that are still at WSU.