{"id":43458,"date":"2011-07-01T13:39:47","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T17:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=43458"},"modified":"2022-05-19T08:06:37","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T12:06:37","slug":"mills-marches-band-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/07\/mills-marches-band-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Mills Marches Band to Success"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"David<\/a>
David Mills, professor of music, teaches a class on leadership for the UConn Marching Band. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When David Mills arrived as UConn\u2019s assistant director of bands in 1990, the basketball program was only just emerging on the national stage, and another 12 years would elapse before a full-fledged Division I-A football team materialized. At the time, the UConn Marching Band comprised a mere 120 members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe University was not, in 1990, what it is now,\u201d says Mills, a music professor in the School of Fine Arts and director of the UConn marching, pep, and symphony bands. \u201cBack in the day at Memorial Stadium, there was really very little of what anyone would call a traditional collegiate football atmosphere. People liked the band, but didn\u2019t think anything of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 21 years since then, however, Mills has more than doubled the size of the marching band. Today, its 300-plus members make up the largest student organization on campus, dedicating many hours a week to rehearsing music and intricate drills on the field in hopes of firing up devoted fans of Huskies football and basketball throughout the year. They also travel nationwide to perform at bowl games and NFL games and have appeared at other major events such as the 1992 Presidential Inaugural Parade and 1996 World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, there\u2019s a real atmosphere at football games,\u201d Mills says. \u201cThere\u2019s energy flowing through the band\u2014not just from the band\u2014and that makes a tremendous difference. Then you tack onto that the excitement of TV, the Big East, and playing real football schools. \u2026 The magic of it is that [the students] come in, and their energy, their dedication, their desire to do something better is just so energizing. They feed that energy back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UConn<\/a>Crediting the triumphs of \u00a0basketball coaches Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma, the revitalization of the campus through the UCONN 2000 program and the rise of UConn\u2019s football team, Mills says such strides collectively boosted the University\u2019s profile to provide the momentum necessary to build the caliber of marching band program he always envisioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll things had to work together,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was like riding a wave that\u2019s perfect. We were ready to catch that wave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recalling the marching band\u2019s trip this past September to play at halftime before 113,000 impassioned football fans at the revamped University of Michigan stadium, Mills acknowledges his pride in the band\u2019s powerful presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get off the bus in Michigan, looking like a million dollars. We were ready. You could see it in their faces. We looked the part,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were rehearsing that morning, and [Michigan fans] knew somebody was there\u2014not just some little school from the East but somebody significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mills\u2019 enthusiasm for teaching music and band directing has not gone unnoticed. This past year, the Alumni Association presented him with a Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and the School of Fine Arts granted him an Outstanding Faculty Award, while his \u00a0former and current students founded the Dr. David L. Mills Marching & Pep Band Fund to honor his 20th anniversary at UConn.<\/p>\n

But to him, it is the students who make the band what it is today. \u201cWe find students so dedicated and so ambitious to do well and work hard. You wouldn\u2019t believe how hard they work, and they want more,\u201d Mills says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what\u2019s most rewarding\u2014their satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a great adventure,” he adds. “At every point that I have thought, \u2018This is as far as we\u2019re going to go,\u2019 it\u2019s been the foundation for the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Great adventure\u2019 in leading students on the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[73],"class_list":["post-43458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-24 09:56:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43458"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44704,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43458\/revisions\/44704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43458"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=43458"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=43458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}