The NCSU Winter Guard team travelled to Clayton High school in 2011 ready to compete against other winter guard teams based in North Carolina. Meredith Stull, now a freshman in environmental technology management, sat in the audience. She said it wasn’t until she saw the NCSU Winter guard members spinning that she knew where she wanted to go for college —N.C. State.
Many students are only familiar with the activities of NCSU Winter Guard from the performances of the color guard that accompanies the N.C. State marching band during football season. Yet many of the same color guards participate in another spin activity during the spring season, an activity referred to as “winter guard.”
However, while winter guard bears the same techniques of choreographed dancing and spinning that characterize the fall color guard performances, winter guard is indoors and is all about raising the spinning techniques of the guards to the highest level.
“I like the fact that you go and you know that the audience is watching you,” Nicole Martin, a sophomore in meteorology, said. “In fall, chances are, people have been drinking a little bit and most people are there because of the football. But with winter guard, everyone is looking at you. People get wowed by what we do and they pay attention to the little things that we do. So when people clap, you know it’s for you.”
NCSU Winter Guard got its start as a club in 2005. However, what began as a four-member group of competitive students is now a 17-member team that has a reputation to maintain at competitions.
With equipment and uniforms costing members hundreds of dollars, bi-weekly practices and four competitions every spring semester, many guards said that they’ve sacrificed a lot to become a member of the NCSU Winter Guard. Almost every member of the team has and stories of concussions, finger jams, broken teeth, broken noses and black eyes… and they have the scars to prove it. “If you don’t have a few bruises, you’re not working hard enough,” Courtney Johnson, a sophomore in forest management, said.
However, according to Jennifer Lee, a junior in environmental technology, when every element of Winter Guard combines, the sport becomes like nothing else and more than justifies the effort and the injuries. “Most of us started with [performing with the marching band] so we already started the love affair with spinning,” Lee said. “And there is nothing like spinning. You could say that the people who are continuing it are insane. I mean, who wants to throw a hunk of wood up in the air and probably knock a tooth out? It’s happened — many times. But we’re addicted to it. We’re addicted to spinning and performing and better ourselves and bettering our skills.”
“I love the challenge of it and the satisfaction you get once you get a difficult move down, there’s nothing that can compare to that feeling,” Martin said.
In addition to a heightened level of competition, many NCSU Winter Guard members said that they are also excited to be able to tell their own story through the choreography that they developed among themselves.
“In fall, the music is already picked for us, we already have our drill and sometimes the choreography is already done,” Stull said. “But with winter guard, we start from scratch so it’s really nice to see how we start with nothing and by the end, we have this really cool end result and we know that we all worked together for this one purpose.”
This year, the NCSU Winter Guard has been working on a performance based around Adele’s song “Skyfall.” “The show that we’re doing is really sad and it’s about yearning,” Katie Charron, a senior in biology and student leader for the club, said. “It’s about conveying an emotion to the audience.”
On Saturday, the NCSU Winter Guard is set to compete at the Atlantic Indoor Association Regional Competition hosted at Green Hope High School. Last year, the team won second place. The club is also trying to obtain club sports status to be able to reserve practice space. The club was denied by the club sports council for the second time earlier this semester on the grounds that the equipment could potentially damage gym basketball courts. Nevertheless, Paul Garcia, the director of bands, said he remains hopeful for the future of the NCSU Winter Guard and its place in the Wolfpack community.
“[NCSU Winter Guard is] allowing students both a creative outlet and a great physical outlet, because there are spin elements, dance elements and just lyrical movement,” Garcia said. “And there aren’t many things on campus that incorporate all that they do. It’s a whole other level of discovery to learn who and what they want to be.”
The NCSU Winterguard practices their routine to the song "Skyfall" by Adele Thursday, 21 March 2013.
