- Hey everybody, I'm Doug.
That's Connor. And this is the Bethel
School District Presents podcast.
Connor Thanksgiving is right around the corner
and nothing says Thanksgiving more than the
Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. Well,
- No, Doug gotta stop you there
because Thanksgiving's all about football.
There's nothing quite like laying on the couch pumped full
of trytophan and gravy
and watching the old Turkey Day Classic.
- No, no, no, no. Connor, the parade dates back to 1924.
Your foosball can't compete.
You don't have that kind of tradition.
- Oh, Montre, did you know
that American football's been played on Thanksgiving day
since 1876 when Yale took on Princeton in an absolute barn
burner of a game that saw the teams combined
for a staggering two points in total?
- Well, I didn't know it went back that far,
but did you know in 1924
to 1926 the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was actually
animals from the Central Park Zoo being
paraded down the street?
- I didn't. But did you know
that in 1952 the Dallas Texans were forced
to move their Thanksgiving Day game to Akron, Ohio,
where it was actually played as an undercard
to a high school football game?
- Well, to a non-football fan like myself,
that's mildly interesting.
Did you know that from 1927 to 1932 at the end
of the parade, they just let the balloons fly away
and each of them had a return address label?
If you returned a balloon to Macy's,
you get a hundred dollars reward.
- That's truly bizarre.
But did you know that since 1989 the MVP
of the Thanksgiving game has been awarded the Turkey Leg
Award, which as you've probably guessed,
is just a giant Turkey leg
that winners are encouraged to eat on the field?
The award was originally handed out
by none other than John Madden,
who popularized the Thanksgiving Tur Duckin,
which was a dish consisting
of a de-bone chicken stuffed into a de-bone duck further
stuffed into a de-bone Turkey.
Tell me your parade does that?
- Well, we typically say the calorie consumption for
after the parade,
but did you know that Macy's is the number two consumer
of helium in the entire world,
second only to the US government? That's
- Pretty interesting and it sounds like you've done
a little research on this.
Doug. Riddle me this though.
Have any of our Bethel bands ever performed in the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade?
- Well, I do wish I had a big reveal here to share
that we had, but maybe not surprisingly,
since it's in New York, Washington state is not very well
represented when you look at all the bands
that have played since 1926.
In fact, during that nearly hundred years, only two
bands from Washington State played in the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day parade, and
that includes one from Muckle Teo in 2002.
That's Washington State's first band that played.
And the second is actually this year Mercer Island
High School will be playing.
So no Bethel, no Graham Capow
and no Spanaway Lake as of yet,
but the next a hundred years could prove otherwise.
In the meantime, talking football and pep bands.
Connor, you went over to Spanaway Lake High School
and found us a story
that actually merges those two things together.
Take it away.
- Joining us today are Owen Johnson and Dave Nick Harris.
They are unique in
that they both play on the Spanaway Lake High School
football team and both play in the school band.
So I'll ask you both.
How long have you been playing music
and how long have you been playing
football? Dave, Nick, I'll start with you.
- I've been playing football since fourth grade
and I picked up musical playing in fifth grade.
- And Owen, what about you? I
- Started music in fifth grade
and I started football in sixth grade.
- You guys had a unique experience recently in
that you performed in your full, uh, football uniform
before one of the games you're actually playing in.
What was that experience like? Dave, Nick?
- It felt kind of odd,
but it was kind of fun to do it in the moment and then right
after get back on the field
and just kind of fill out two
of my biggest passions in one day.
- Oh, and what about you? It
- Was pretty cool 'cause I got to, um, use both
of my strength and music
and football on one night, so that was pretty neat.
- Is there anything that you do in music that helps you
with your athletics or vice versa?
- Uh, yeah, sometimes, you know, you have
to work on your air in both.
You really gotta have good stamina
and good lungs for to do both efficiently.
- The way I think of it in music, you have your own part,
so you gotta only just only focus on your own part.
You can't do everyone else's part.
You just focus on perfecting your own part, making yourself
as good as you can possibly be.
- Being a musician and being an athlete,
there's probably some nerves before a big game
or a big performance.
What's more nerve wracking playing in the game
or performing in front of a big crowd?
- In my honest opinion, band rehearsals
or band, like big band concerts can be more nerve wracking
than football sometimes, but it really just depends on
how you've prepared for the moment.
- Oh, and you get nervous, neither of those?
- Um, music not so much because I've done it quite a few,
but football, I'm still kind of getting newer
with playing on varsity.
I didn't play a ton on varsity last year,
so I'm still getting used to that.
But music, I've been doing that forever. So.
- And these are both, you know, you're,
you're both pretty eclectic guys.
You're interested in a lot of variety of things.
What do you enjoy most about football
and what do you enjoy most about playing music?
- Most about playing music is that it's just something
that lets me, it's a,
it's a very big outlet as well as football.
They're both big outlets. Football, I've just,
I'm just a really competitive person.
It's my nature to just compete band and playing instruments.
It's just something that's really fun, like a kind of a,
a more relaxed, fun outlet. What
- About you Owen?
What do you like about both of these things? In
- Music, I just like playing an instrument
and I just like making music in football.
I just like, I just like being able to play football.
Um, I also like, I have no natural athleticism, so I like
that I have to push myself in a lot in order
to be the best I can possibly be.
- Nice. That's a good pursuit.
Do you feel like you want to pursue either music
or athletics? Uh, beyond high school?
- Yeah. Um, there are some scholarship opportunities I have
for music, um,
and in college I think I'm gonna pursue wrestling as well.
- Nice. What about you, Dave, Nick?
- There's definitely a lot more opportunities doing both.
You can get music scholarships, hopefully you work hard
to get a football scholarship.
I think it's really cool that if you're doing both,
you have an opportunity to get both.
- I love this story. Two real renaissance
men here in the district.
Did you get a chance to talk to their music teacher?
- As it happens? I did get a chance to sit down
with Spanaway Lake High School Band director Bruce Leonardy.
I started off by asking how rare is it
to have two students like this in this class?
- We usually have a couple kids from the football
team in our band program.
They come to band class every day.
We have cheerleaders, we have kids in all kinds of sports.
Right now I have swimmers and volleyball
and all the other cross country.
I got kids in, in all
of those sports as well as a lot of club.
We have the ASB president sitting in our room too,
so it's not as unusual as, as you might think,
what I want fifth graders out there to be thinking about is,
yes, you can be in band
and also do all the other things
that a high school experience should be about.
And that's exactly what it is.
It's an experience where you're discovering
and getting involved with everything you, you might be able
to get involved in, in a high school.
- And, and why do you think that that's important?
Why for kids to kind
of find their passion when they're in school
and ex explore different
opportunities and different avenues?
What, what are they getting out of it? Well, I think
- Education is about discovering oneself.
I think that education is, is about them doing exactly
what you just said, figuring out what am I passionate about?
What, what gets me going in the morning when I get up?
What, what am I excited about?
And if we have kids that come to school
that are excited about some aspect of their day,
they come every day.
They do well in school.
And so I think that the kids that are here,
they love being in the band room
because this is, this is their family.
This is their, their safe place.
And we work hard, we work hard, we strive for excellence.
And, and I think that it's like any
of those other teams, uh, I'm like a coach.
I I push 'em real hard and, but I also love them and,
and we we're doing some good things. What
- Are these students learning in your class?
What are they learning in the football field?
What are they learning in the ASB room
that's gonna transfer into their adulthood
to help them become successful adults?
- I've been doing this for a long time.
This is year 29,
and I think in my 29 years I've watched a lot
of high school football games
because I'm out there for every home football game.
And in all those years I'm thinking back
that maybe I've seen one
or two, maybe more maybe an opposing team
that I didn't know the player, but I've seen one
or two guys that went on and played serious college ball
or maybe even made it to the pros.
They can dream and I think it's great to dream,
but the, the reality of the situation is
that they're not playing football in the high school level
to become professional football players.
And it's exactly the same here in our music classroom.
I have a few kids in my career
that I know are out there making money,
but the vast majority of them, almost a hundred percent
of them, maybe 95% or more are not going on and,
and making a living playing music.
But they've discovered a love of music
and a lot of 'em are lifelong players.
They keep playing, whether it's in community bands
or whether it's at their church
or whether it's, you know, whatever.
And they have an appreciation for it
and they want their kids someday to be a part of it as well,
which is obviously what we want to see happen
because, you know, music is a great thing for, for our soul.
- Well Bruce, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate
- It.
Thank you. Anytime.
- Really great story, Connor.
I love the opportunities that students have here in Bethel
and to circle us back to the beginning of the show,
while we may not agree on football versus the parade on
Thanksgiving, we can both agree I'm
the Bobby Fla of the kitchen.
What does your kitchen look like on Thanksgiving?
Any truly horrific blunders you wanna tell us about?
- Well, funny you should ask Doug
because yes, just last year I did have a bit of a blunder.
I got a little confused.
I haven't been cooking turkeys long
and I cooked the bird breast down
was very confused when I tried to cut into it at the end
and it hit right on the bone.
But I've learned my lesson and this year I am
deep frying that baby
- Connor, on behalf of all our listeners, be careful.
- Will do. Thanks everybody. See you next week.