By the time she was ready to graduate from Sequim High School in 2012, Sarah Doty had a high school career chock full of fun band memories.
There were trips to Seattle for the Macy’s Day Parade, to Victoria, B.C., the various regional competitions and, a traditional highlight for many a Wolf band member, the Heritage Festival in Anaheim, Calif., and its accompanying side trip to Disneyland.
But it was the friendly confines of Husky Stadium at the University of Washington that would shape Doty’s future for good. As part of a tradition that now goes back nearly six-and-a-half decades, the UW Marching Band invites high school musicians from across the state to perform as an ensemble at halftime of an early season game.
Decked out in Husky purple and gold and bringing the traditional “chair-step” and “toe-point” style of marching, the 240-member-strong UW group invites the young musicians to experience a bit of game day, with a pregame show, rehearsal and halftime performance, much of it among tens of thousands of diehard Husky football fans.
Sequim High is a regular attendee and the experience opened Doty’s eyes.
“I have to be that one day; that’s awesome,” she recalls thinking during one Husly Band Day. “I always wanted to be in the Husky Band. I wanted to meet people that way.”
Now a four-year Husky Marching Band veteran, Doty and her UW musicians — including SHS grad Mikaele Baker who along with Doty is a part of the UW band’s 25-member piccolo section — are headed this week to the 2016 Chick-Fil-A to root on the No. 4-ranked UW football team and its fans as the team takes on No. 1-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff Semifinal in Georgia on New Year’s Eve.
“I’ve never been to Georgia; I’m really excited,” Doty says.
“If we (UW’s football team) had placed higher, we’d go to Arizona,” she notes; the Fiesta Bowl features No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Clemson. “We said, ‘No, we want to go somewhere new.’”
“Hopefully,” she adds, with thoughts turning to an NCAA national championship, “Florida after that.”
‘Something clicked’
Doty was born and raised in Sequim, and started playing music in middle school under Dave Upton, then at Sequim High under Vern Fosket.
Doty started with flute before changing to piccolo late in high school.
“I almost quit a couple of times; I’m so happy I didn’t now,” Doty says.
“I wasn’t that into music. I think it was freshman or sophomore year … something clicked.”
It clicked in a big way as Doty jumped to the piccolo, an instrument about half the size of the flute, its sibling, but producing notes an octave higher.
The toughest part of making the switch to piccolo, Doty says, was “the feeling of not getting the sound right, getting the embouchure (mouth positioning) right.”
“You have to kind of relearn how to play something,” she says, and it helps to be fearless in the face of producing an off-note.
“I like how high-pitched it is because you can hear us,” says the UW senior who is majoring in not music, but sociology. (She has an education and music minor.)
“I was so indecisive — psychology, music education, engineering. I sat down with someone and they told me about sociology,” Doty says. “It worked out in the end. I’m happy with what I chose.”
Even without the music major, Doty and fellow UW Marching Band musicians keep to a fairly heavy workload, particularly during the football season.
“Band is our life right now,” Doty says. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, it’s two hours (6-8 p.m.) of full band rehearsal, plus one hour of sections. On game day, the band is there four-and-a-half hours prior to kickoff. Then, of course, they play throughout the game, followed by a postgame show up to one-and-a-half hours after the game.
“We always have a lot of rehearsal time,” Doty says. “It always feels (like) you never stop. You’re learning the music and the choreography.”
The Sequim native says band members spend almost as much time learning the on-field moves as they do learning new music.
“Our section has the best choreography. It’s really intense and fun,” she says.
The band plays each home game and then often breaks off to do smaller “pep bands” for away games; Doty attended this year’s UW-California-Berkeley game in early November. And, of course, the band makes the trek to Pullman every other year for the annual UW-Washington State Apple Cup.
“We take pride in being some of the football teams’ biggest fans,” she says. “I didn’t really know that much about football, even here (in Sequim). Now I love it. It’s a fun atmosphere to be in.”
Significant commitment
Not just connected to the UW gridiron team, the marching band plays for University of Washington men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, softball, baseball and even some gymnastic events throughout the school year.
Doty says musicians have to audition separately for those groups and band members for basketball squads play once or twice a week.
“We’re all there because we love doing it,” Doty says. “(We) all get through it together.”
Doty says moving from Sequim to Seattle came with a significant amount of “culture shock.”
“I felt kind of lost (but) I got through it. Now I like the big city. With band, we always say we can make a school of 40,000 a lot smaller.”
For Doty, the time and energy commitment is worth it.
“This is everything to me; I attribute a lot of that to (Vern) Fosket.”
Fosket, director of Sequim High School bands for the past 20 years and a Washington Music Educators Association Hall-of-Famer, says it isn’t easy to keep the kind of scheduled that Doty and Baker do.
“You’ve got to have desire to be in that kind of ensemble; the marching time commitment is huge,” he says.
While Husky Band Day does spark the idea of playing in collegiate marching bands, it’s not always all about playing at UW, Fosket notes. Sequim High grades are playing at Eastern Washington, Virginia Tech, Boise State and other schools, he says.
“UW is most visual to our kids because we do Husky Band Day every year,” Fosket says, (but) getting into UW is no easy thing.”
Once they get into those bands, Fosket says, they often take a road similar to Doty’s, with a non-music major.
Still, playing in college marching bands seems to stick with SHS grads, Fosket notes.
“That’s been the highlight of their college career, (especially) getting to know the other kids,” he says.
Big games
Doty and company have been extra busy the past few years, as the UW football squad experiences a resurgence into the national spotlight. The UW Marching Band played at the Fight Hunger Bowl (San Francisco, Calif.) in 2013 and the Cactus Bowl in early 2015.
The band provided entertainment and plenty of cheers as the Huskies routed Colorado 41-10 in the Pac-12 championship game in Santa Clara, Calif., on Dec. 2.
“It was pretty intense; we weren’t sure what to expect,” Doty says.
“It’s pretty cool to see a young team do this well. You could tell how excited they were. A couple of years ago we just didn’t know what this team was going to do.”
As with other road trips, UW Marching Band members have a fairly heavy itinerary leading up to, and particularly on, game day.
“We usually go right to a rehearsal and practice our field show. Generally, we’ll go to a school nearby. Then to eat we’ll get bused to a buffet. Then more rehearsing. Sometimes we’ll get dropped off to go sight-see and be told, ‘Be back here at a certain time.’ Sometimes we get to meet the other band. That’s always nice.”
And even if the team loses, Doty notes, “The band always wins.”
Doty’s favorite band besides UW is the University of California-Berkeley.
”Our bands have a good relationship going way back. They’re always nice to us and they hang out. They have a traditional style, like us.”
Come New Year’s Eve, the Husky Marching Band will have a full itinerary for the Peach Bowl in front of a national audience.
The band will do some traditional pregame stuff, Doty says — spelling out the UW Logo and “Huskies” and the school song — and they’ll play the “Star-Spangled Banner” alongside the University of Alabama band.
As a special treat, Doty says, the UW band has a “Rocky”-themed show that usually goes over well with audiences. Band directors have choreographed a scene with two boxers in full fight mode while musicians play “Eye of the Tiger” and the “Rocky” theme.
In her senior year at UW, Doty — whose parents Liesl and Mark still live and work in the Sequim area — says she hasn’t quite figured out what she wants to do with her sociology degree.
“My goal is to work at a college or high school setting as an advisor, admissions counselor or high school advisor, getting kids to college. I had such a good experience. I want to make sure that happens for other people.”
“(I’ll go) wherever it takes me but I like this area, Washington or Oregon.”
But her mind will be on another region of the region of the states come Dec. 31, when UW’s Huskies try to upset favorite Alabama.
“I believe in them,” Doty says of her Huskies. “They’re going to be the strongest team Alabama has faced this year.
“I think no matter what we’ll put up a good fight. I’d love to shock the U.S.”
Reach Gazette editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.
University of Washington senior Sarah Doty and fellow UW Marching Band members play at the Dec. 31 Peach Bowl as No. 4 Washington takes on No. 1 Alabama.
Sequim High band instructor Vern Fosket and SHS grad Sarah Doty share a laugh at the 2015 Husky Band Day in Seattle. Sequim Gazette file photo by Michael Dashiell
Sequim High band instructor Vern Fosket and SHS grad Sarah Doty share a laugh at the 2015 Husky Band Day in Seattle. Sequim Gazette file photo by Michael Dashiell
Sequim High grads Sarah Doty (front row, third from left) and Mikaele Baker (third row, far right) join their fellow UW Marching Band seniors and flash some “Ws” for the University of Washington at their last home football game. Submitted photo
