Ten years later, Ted Land gets goosebumps when he thinks back to those tuneup sessions for Illini football games.
“I can still feel the powerful first blast of Revised Entrance #3, the Marching Illini pregame song, shaking the foundation of the Harding Band Building during my first rehearsal with the band as a freshman," says the 2007 grad, now an Emmy-winning, do-it-all reporter for Seattle's KING-TV. “That chord echoes in my memory.
"Here was a group I watched all throughout high school and then I was among them. I was so proud to tell people I was in the Marching Illini and I was honored to put on a show for audiences on game day, particularly when the team wasn’t doing well, which, unfortunately, was most of my four years at UI.
“Sometimes, I’ll search for the latest Marching Illini videos on YouTube, and try to relive the musical moments that defined my college experience, but it’s never the same.”
