Georgia Redcoat Marching Band

The University of Georgia Redcoat Band
School	University of Georgia
Location	Athens, Georgia, USA
Conference	SEC
Founded	1905
Director	Dr. Michael C. Robinson
Assistant director	Brett Bawcum Rob Akridge
Members	440
Fight song	"Hail to Georgia"
Website	Official Website

The Georgia Redcoat Marching Band, commonly referred to as "The Redcoats", is the official marching band of the University of Georgia.

“Keep your seats, everyone…the REDCOATS are coming!"

Originally started in 1905 as a section of the UGA Military Department, the University of Georgia Redcoat Band has grown in the last 100 years from 20 military cadets to over 400 men and women covering almost every major at the University. The band’s first non-military performance was not at a football game, as many would think, but the 1906 Georgia-Clemson baseball game. For the first twenty five years of its existence, the band members split their time (albeit not evenly) between their studies, their military drill, the band, and the athletic events they were required to play at (including baseball games, which eventually released the band from their duties). It was also during this time that the fight song “Glory Glory to Old Georgia,” composed by former bandsman and future head of the Music Department Hugh Hodgson, made it debut. At a Georgia Tech game in the late 1900s, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal, not knowing the new Georgia fight song, kept constantly complaining about “the incessant playing of ‘John Brown’s Body.’” (The main Georgia fight song is modeled after “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” that song was based on the 1859 song about the abolitionist who took over the US arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia (then Virginia).

During this time, the band was also a mainstay at the many parades held in the city of Athens, among them the 1915 Woodmen of the World Convention parade held in Athens, and a parade signaling America’s entry into World War I. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the band, still under the Military Department, expanded modestly in size by allowing non-military musicians to join their ranks, spurred on by the eventual introduction of band scholarships. During this time, the band began to make short trips with the football team if the funds were there. In preparing for a major match-up with Auburn in Columbus, Georgia, the band needed $700 to make the train trip. They raised the funds by instituting a “tag sale” among the students at the school, which was made more successful by the fact that the female students (which only recently arrived at UGA), were able raise the most money. Not only did they make the money needed to go to Columbus, they had money left over for needed repairs.

Then, during the 1935 Georgia Bulldog football season, an event took place that brought the need for a larger, more “appropriate” marching band. In November of that year, Georgia was scheduled to play Louisiana State. The governor of Louisiana made special plans to take the “Golden Band from Tigerland,” by then one of the largest marching bands in the nation. Upon seeing the small Georgia band against the massive LSU band, movements among the alumni and athletic association began to fund and equip the band with more instruments and members. While the number dwindled during World War II (as was the case with most colleges and universities at the time), the band was able to grow back to a modest size before 1955.

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Wikipedia