Muskegon Big Red Band

TRADITION of the TUNNEL
Click the image to check out the band. by Terry Foster / The Detroit News MUSKEGON - Muskegon coach Tony Annese rushed from the field, past excited fans, to reach his favorite postgame spot under the stands at Hackley Stadium. He planted himself by his team's dressing room to enjoy one final tradition in an evening filled with rituals that bridged generations. Friday, about 6,000 fans gathered to celebrate 100 years of football at Hackley as the Big Red trounced Zeeland East, 45-13. Few went home despite the lopsided score. Like Annese, they wanted to feel the booming drums vibrate off the concrete walls as the band marched underneath the stadium. "OK. You got to hang tight against the wall," Annese said, walking toward his spot and pressing his back to the wall. "You will get hit if you are not careful." Fans lined both sides of the cramped corridor as the band paraded through the narrow human tunnel. "Look how focused they are," Annese said with admiration. The march that eventually took the musicians to their music room has been going on for decades. So has winning football. purity in America.		It was a brisk clear night, windless, under a Halloween Eve's quartermoon. As the teams went through their pregame drills there was loud, rhythmic clapping among the Philadelphia visitors in the bleachers. The Ackerman band broke into a march tune. "The brass section is flat tonight," Professor Sansing said; then, absorbing the Friday-night high school pageantry which had become habit to me, he added: "This may be the last athletic purity in America." THE COURTING OF MARCUS DUPREE by Willie Morris Standing on the lawn, I hear the sound of distant drums. They carry a message - football season is near. It is my favorite time of the year. The heat of the summer is slowly replaced by the beauty of autumn. Winter begins it's slow descend. Soon the team will take the field to fight for the athletic honor of Muskegon High School at historic Hackley Stadium. Cheerleaders will sway and shout. The ghosts of players from well over one hundred seasons of competition will fill the air. Then, when the game is over, the band will march through the tunnel beneath the old concrete stands. Fans will line the walls. Drums echo within, as the brilliance of color, rhythm, and formality fill the atmosphere. A crush of people emerge, as the performers cut left, then right, marching up Sanford Street toward their final destination near the old gymnasium. The perfect ending for a cool autumn evening. Professor Sansing was right. This is the last athletic purity in America.