At a Northern Virginia high school, the coach of the one-win football team forced the band off the field with four minutes left on the halftime clock during the last game of the season.
The Annandale High School band, which won is this year’s USBands Mid-Atlantic States champion, was in the middle of the second of three songs, according to NBC Washington.
The Annandale High School football team was in the middle of its eighth straight loss, a 55-14 drubbing. Its season is now mercifully over.
The football coach, Michael Scott, was worried that the band might play past its allotted amount of time, reports Annandale Patch. In that event, the Atoms could have been assessed a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
Some parents in the stands also expressed their desire for the band to scurry off the field.
“Coach Scott and the rest of the football team kind of started encroaching on the band, and they started going, like, to the 15 yard line, 20 yard line,” Marching Atoms band member Megan Ryan told NBC Washington.
“Then Coach Scott kind of got angry and started yelling, ‘Get off the field!'”
But wait. There’s more.
Scott then walked over and waggled the podium upon which drum major, Douglas Nguyen, Jr., was standing, doing his drum major thing.
“All of the sudden, I’m looking around and I feel something shaking my podium,” Nguyen told the NBC affiliate. “I see it’s Coach Scott.”
Nguyen said never felt like he was in any danger when the podium teetered, but he wasn’t super comfortable, either.
The Marching Atoms did get to finish their set after the beatdown football game ended, but it wasn’t same.
“I just kind of felt like Coach took away our last big moment for high school for marching band,” band member James Barker told NBC.
Principal Vincent Randazze formally apologized for the incident on Thursday.
“Annandale High School honored its senior football players, cheerleaders, dance team and marching band members at the game,” Randazze wrote. “My office this week has been investigating the series of events that occurred while the marching band performed at halftime. I am extremely concerned and dismayed with how this situation was handled by the participants.”
The principal said that Scott has offered to tell the band that he is sorry for his actions. Randazze called this gesture “a necessary first step.”
“What happened shouldn’t have happened and I regret that it has tarnished what should have been a night of celebration for our seniors.”
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