Battle Hymn of the Bulldog Nation has become a powerful pregame tradition at Georgia home game

When the time came for Tyler Richmond to choose an instrument to play during his sixth-grade year, his mom wanted him to play the French horn.

“That’s what she played,” Richmond said, “but I just wasn’t really having it. There was just something about the trumpet.”

Richmond has been going to Georgia football games for as long as he can remember. He remembers the Dawg Walks, the cheering fans and the sea of red and black flooding into Sanford Stadium on a crisp fall Saturday in Athens.

Senses are peaked for many on those Saturdays, as they were for Richmond throughout all of those years as a Georgia fan. And while there are many moments that make up a game day in Athens, for Richmond, there is one singular minute in time when everything stops, the noises of an excited crowd fade away and anticipation takes over.

That’s when the lone trumpeter steps out into the open at the top of the southwest corner of Sanford Stadium. During the hush of the crowd, the lone Redcoat Band member puts the trumpet to his or her lips and, for the next few seconds, all of Sanford Stadium is transfixed as the trumpeter begins to play the piercing first notes of the “Battle Hymn of the Bulldog Nation.”

For Richmond, that was the moment when he knew the trumpet would be his instrument.

“Whenever I went to games, it just felt so awesome to look up there and think that could be me one day,” he said. “That really could be me.”

And now, that day has finally come as Richmond will be the lone trumpeter to ring in the 2018 football season inside the walls and gates of Sanford Stadium. But there was a lot of work that went into becoming the lone trumpeter; the Redcoat Band doesn’t take the selection process lightly.

Usually, a week before the start of the football season, tryouts are held for the lone trumpeter after practice. Competition is fierce, as anywhere from 35 to 40 students try out for just four or five spots.

“It’s heartbreaking,” assistant director of bands and associate director of athletic bands Brett Bawcum said of the audition process. “I have heard more than one of them say that they decided to play the trumpet because they were a Georgia fan growing up, and they wanted to play the Battle Hymn solo.”

For many, that dream doesn’t become a reality. But for a select few, it does – as it did for Richmond.

The process features a blind audition, meaning that the judges – including a panel of about 10 to 12 band directors, music professors and graduate students – turn away from the students who are auditioning. Students are given an order in which they are to play. And as their numbers are called, they play through the Battle Hymn solo twice.

“The audition part – and it’s kind of unfair for me to say this because I haven’t played in front of 93,000 people yet – but, honestly, the audition process is very, very stressful,” Richmond said.

Richmond was given the second slot in the audition. In all, he had to listen the 34 other students play the Battle Hymn twice. He said the experience was exceptionally intense, but he was prepared for it. Since the start of the summer, Richmond played the Battle Hymn to practice nearly every time that he picked up his trumpet.

“I feel like 95 percent of it is getting the finger placement right and allowing it to become second nature to you,” he said. “That’s what I tried to do.”

It was time well spent as Richmond became one of four trumpeters to be awarded lone trumpeter status for the 2018 season. It was a day that Richmond said was the best day of his life as he was added to the growing list of trumpeters to lead the Battle Hymn during the pregame show at Sanford Stadium since the 2000 season.

And while some of the freshmen in the Redcoat Band might not have even been born the first time the lone trumpeter stood at the southwest corner of the stadium 18 years ago, there are many who remember that day clearly and the steps taken to begin one of Georgia football’s most well-loved tradition.

A life of its own

In the months leading up to 2000 Georgia football season, the Redcoat Band’s pregame show needed updating. The show’s creation was thus placed in Bawcum’s hands.

As he began brainstorming ideas, the thought crossed his mind to incorporate the Battle Hymn somewhere in the show. Until that point, the Battle Hymn had been a hit among members of the Redcoat Band as it was a staple the moment that former Redcoat Band members Marion English and Jeff Simmons arranged the piece in 1987 by slowing down an otherwise upbeat tempo. It’s a ubiquitous melody, according to Bawcum, that has been adapted in many ways through the years – years before even English and Simmons got ahold of it.

Despite the hymn’s popularity, the question loomed in the back of Bawcum’s mind as to whether the Battle Hymn would be the right piece for a pregame show.

“We have the national anthem, we have the alma mater, and those are great. But it’s just a lot of slow music for a show where you are trying to get people fired up,” Bawcum said. “I was worried about that, so I started thinking of ways to make it more interesting.”

Bawcum then began to write a script that he thought could accompany the piece during the show. He felt as though the Battle Hymn told a story, because, despite the slower tempo, the piece itself evokes a powerful stillness, causing chill bumps to rise on those listening as the notes build to a crescendo just as the plot to a story deepens before the climax.

But the Battle Hymn needed more than just words; it needed a voice.

“You needed somebody to take you on the journey,” Bawcum said.

The gears in his mind were turning as he walked into work the next day, wholeheartedly believing that his idea would land flat. But a week later, the person who needed to take the audience on the journey was a man who was known for his ability to do just that, captivating an audience with every touchdown call.

That man was Larry Munson.

“That voice is so well known,” Bawcum said. “(His voice) is certainly the soundtrack for a lot of people’s upbringing and definitely for anybody listening to a game outside the stadium on a fall Saturday.”

It didn’t take long for Munson to agree. The day to record the edited Battle Hymn script came a week later as Bawcum met Munson at the WNGC radio station’s recording studio.

“He probably had no idea what he was doing in terms of what it would turn into,” Bawcum said. “Instantly, you knew this was something different. This was new territory for us in all the right ways.”

It was new territory in more ways than one as Bawcum began to envision the possibility of placing the soloist for the Battle Hymn in a place where no trumpeter had ventured before — the southwest corner of the stadium. Despite everything that Bawcum had created up until that point to add the Battle Hymn to the pregame show, all of the work would be for naught if the lone trumpeter could not perform.

“If that first trumpet player goes out and does a terrible job on the solo, you probably shut it down because you are worried that it isn’t going to be something that you are going to sustain,” Bawcum said. “Whoever that was, they deserve a lot of credit.”

Joel Garcia is one of the lone trumpeters who has helped get the Georgia crowd stirred up with the “Battle Hymn of the Bulldog Nation.” (Savannah Reece)

Breathing and playing

On Sept. 2, 2000, while the entire Redcoat Band made its way onto the field at Sanford Stadium moments before the start of the first home game of the season, Lee Newman – with his trumpet in hand – ascended to the southwest corner.

As Newman and then-graduate assistant Scott Corley made their way to the designated lone trumpeter spot for the first time, a fan stopped the duo along the way.

“Hey guys, the band is down there,” Newman recalls the fan saying. “I think you are lost.”

But they weren’t. In fact, Newman was right where he needed to be.

Newman arrived at Georgia in 1996 and was in his second year as a soloist and section leader in 2000, when Bawcum approached him about the possibility of playing the Battle Hymn solo during the pregame show. Newman was up for it, of course, and he began practicing but on a much larger scale than just on the Redcoat Band practice field.

On the Tuesday before the start of the 2000 season, Bawcum, Newman and a few others walked into an empty Sanford Stadium. Newman practiced the trumpet solo about four times. And while he practiced, the notion of a being a solo performer took on a whole new meaning.

“All of a sudden, you are several hundred yards away from even the conductor. So, it was weird because you wouldn’t hear the ensemble because of the crowd,” Newman said. “You are just sorely alone. It really changes the definition of ‘lone trumpeter’ when you are up there.”

On that September game day, Newman was in a new territory that presented its own challenges. For starters, the trumpet microphone broke. In order for Newman to continue, Corley had to lean out over the railing to keep the microphone in place.

Then, the time finally came for Newman to begin the 14-note solo.

For those who enjoy playing, reading and listening to music, it could be noted that, based on the sheet music of the Battle Hymn, the trumpet solo wouldn’t be all that difficult for even a novice to perform. But the Battle Hymn is difficult because of everything on top of the actual playing of the notes.

Yes, it can be difficult to manipulate the pitch at which the solo is to be played. And yes, it’s a rather slow piece that has been derived from a faster arrangement. But all of that pales in comparison to the real reason why playing the Battle Hymn solo is difficult.

“When you compound all of those things with the fact that this is the most nervous (the soloist) has ever been in their entire life, and then you add the feedback that comes back on them several milliseconds later, you are kind of setting yourself up for some real problems,” Bawcum said.

But in the moment when Newman became the university’s first lone trumpeter, all of those difficulties were being weighed down on him as tradition, as it seems, was riding on that one moment.

“All I remember is just focusing on breathing and playing; that’s all I focused on,” Newman said. “As soon as it was over, I just sat down because it was overwhelming. I think I teared up – I didn’t let Scott see me do that – but it was the neatest thing I ever did in college besides meeting my wife.”

Now, 18 years later, Newman is the director of bands at Norcross High School near Atlanta. Since he took over at Norcross, Newman has had two former students go on to become lone trumpeters in their own right as the tradition of the lone trumpeter and the Battle Hymn continues to pierce the quiet of Sanford Stadium during a time that normally would be filled with cheers and screams.

“To go back and watch them play it, it’s just so emotional,” Newman said. “I am getting chills right now just talking about it. It’s hard to describe the amount of pride you feel for every single student that gets to go up there and play that solo.”

It’s ours

Every football team at every level has created some form of tradition, and every team at every level believes its tradition is the greatest.

For many programs, music plays a hand in tradition. That includes Ohio State as its band is one of the most well known among in college football with its tradition of “Dotting the I” in its pregame ceremony. For other places, tradition is spelled out. Even Bawcum – who said he very much doesn’t like it – would say Tennessee’s band forming the ‘Power T’ for the players to run out of is pretty cool. Or maybe tradition is in the form of a symbol, like at Auburn when an eagle takes flight before kickoff.

Whatever the tradition might be, music and action are a part of it – both of which go hand-in-hand with one another.

“It’s like when you are watching a really good movie. Imagine your favorite movie without music in the background,” Newman said. “You just want to yell and scream and get excited, and that is what that music does now that we have so closely correlated it with a football team.”

But what is it about music that evokes such emotion? Bawcum said if he knew the answer to that, he would have a lot more money.

But for many Georgia fans and fans of the game alike, music, in its purest form, is a cornerstone of tradition. And while many Georgia fans would argue that the Battle Hymn of the Bulldog Nation, or Light Up Sanford, or screaming the words to “Glory” after a touchdown is scored are the best traditions in the land, many other programs would argue that point.

For Bawcum, the man who played a part in creating a Georgia tradition, he believes that traditions – whatever they might be – are cherished so much because, ultimately, they are owned by those who revere them the most.

“I think we value traditions not because they are better than somebody else’s but because they are ours,” Bawcum said. “The real reason it is important to me is because, first and foremost as a Bulldog, it’s our music. It’s our tradition, and nobody can take that away from us.”

And as Richmond stands alone in the southwest corner of Sanford Stadium on Saturday afternoon, he will become the latest to take part in that tradition.

(Top photo of Chandler Dickerson by Savannah Reece)

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Trudie Dory

Update: 2024-05-26

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