Lindsay France/University Photography

It was sheer exhaustion for one of the Big Red Marching Band's first trumpets, Dave Samuels '07.

It was a brief, curious scene outside Barton Hall on Saturday, Sept. 23, following the Big Red football game against Yale. This wasn't a medical emergency, however -- it was sheer exhaustion for one of the Big Red Marching Band's first trumpets, Dave Samuels '07.

The band is newly charged with pumping up school spirit, playing more often and on more plays and working the crowd up into a frenzy -- what it calls an "excitement campaign."

Samuels, a microbiology major who is the trumpet section spinmaster (he calls out changes in parade formation), also was acting section leader that day, in charge of the "excitement."

"As one of the guys who came up with this idea and as one of the seniors in the band, I felt I needed to step up and be a leader and really give that example to the rest of the band," Samuels explained. "So after four quarters of running around and screaming and playing and marching in the show, I was beat. I couldn't see straight; I could barely walk. By the time we got back to Barton [from Schoellkopf], that was pretty much the only thing I could do -- just collapse and lie down for a few minutes."

Tommy Seery '09, a history major and also a trumpeter with the marching band, came over to Samuels -- "just to make sure that I wasn't, in fact, dead," Samuels quipped. Seery handed Samuels a bottle of Gatorade, which is when university photographer Lindsay France captured the scene. (France happened to be there at the time because she had locked her keys in her car and was waiting for her husband to bring her spare set.)

"After a game like that, it's kind of nice to sit down and just think about what you did that day," recalled Seery. "We had been there since 9 o'clock in the morning and that was probably 5:30 in the afternoon, and we were almost constantly either marching or playing."

Samuels said he hopes the renewed energy of the marching band will have a positive effect on the team. While the Big Red lost to Yale 21-9, they were solidly in the game until the fourth quarter, Samuels said. "It was one of the most exciting football games I've been to because people were having fun, people were cheering."

By the following week, Sept. 30, when the Big Red faced off against Albany's Great Danes for the first time ever, the marching band was ready and turned up the energy even more. In a rare night game at Schoellkopf, the Big Red beat the No. 23-ranked Albany team 23-21, chalking up the first win of the season. Coincidence?

"When we play, we keep the energy up, and then the crowd gets their energy going," Seery said. "If you have energy behind a team, it just makes them play better."

Last weekend (Oct. 7), the Big Red lost to Harvard on the road, 33-23, but Samuels and Seery remain optimistic.

Samuels likened his goal to the example of watching a University of Michigan football game -- "You see the stadium with 120,000 people in there, and the band is just rocking after every play. I realize we're not going to get 120,000 in Schoellkopf, but I feel like the band can bring that kind of atmosphere, just by being a presence."