Dear Editor,
As a faculty member in his seventh year here, of which five have been spent as a member of faculty senate, I have watched with interest as some supporters of football continually distort the facts.
I attended the task force update forum with football alumni at the last fall family day – a meeting that supporters stated that over 200 were in attendance. Maybe I was at the different meeting, for in fact there were only 47. I have also listened to the feelings of faculty concerning the return of football be misrepresented.
The most recent misrepresentation is the letter from Jon Wilcox to the editor where he states so many mistruths that it is laughable. After all, and in his own words, the accuracy of his statements is due to “I only know this,” Wilcox says “the music programs at ETSU are not what they used to be.”
In fact, the program is better. No longer are music majors spending 15-20 hours a week for a one-credit marching band class. Now they are graduating on time and as alumni representing the ETSU music program nationally.
They are graduate students at leading music programs (e.g., The Manhattan School of Music and The University of North Texas), winning and placing in the finals of national competitions – e.g., Percussive Arts Society International Conference (PASIC) and The National Trumpet Competition (NTC) – and becoming music educators themselves.
His statement that “He knows excellent students would rather go to an institution that offers football because there will be a marching band there,” is somewhat true. But it is truer that the excellent musicians will go where there isn’t football and they don’t have to do marching band! In fact, many of our students transfer from UT after they experience playing “Rocky Top” 100 times at a football game, and realize that what they love is playing their instrument, not marching in circles with 300 other sheep.
He even goes on to state “Enrollment in the music programs is way down at ETSU these days.” Maybe as a former student he has access to figures that present faculty are not aware of. The number of music majors since the demise of football has in fact gone up. If music here is so-so, why would our present director of bands be here, having left a prestigious Midwest major university to become a part of the music department here? The Bands of America competition that was held here was not attended consistently locally by high school bands and was in fact not a big moneymaker. Maybe someone can come up with a new version of “spell-check” that can also check for accuracy and facts, not fiction.
It is also obvious that Wilcox doesn’t support athletics here already. All he would have had to do was attend one men’s or women’s basketball game and he would have heard the Buccaneer Brass play “The Tennessee Waltz”, as it does after every home basketball game. By the way, Mr.Wilcox, how much money have you donated to the ETSU football campaign?
And the students are now being asked to not only pay for their own education but to pay for others as well.
-Dr. David Champouillon, Associate Professor of Music

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