HE’S MARCHING ON
San Jose State Marching Band Director Scott Pierson will conduct his final football game halftime show this Saturday as he prepares for the coda of a 40-year career with the university
For the past four decades, Scott Pierson has spent the summer before every San Jose State football season working out his game plan. He recruits new players, picks up on nationwide trends and tweaks his formations, moving pieces around on his kitchen table as he looks for that something extra that will mean success on the CEFCU Stadium field.
Pierson isn’t a football coach. He’s the director of the San Jose State University Marching Band, and he’s bringing a 40-year career with the university to a close.
He won’t officially retire until this spring, but Saturday’s 2 p.m. football game against Wyoming will be the last time he climbs up on a platform to lead the band for its pregame and halftime shows. It’s the end of an era for Pierson, who has conducted the soundtrack to Spartan football for more than a generation.
“I could have retired three years ago, but I thought 40 was a cool number,” said Pierson, 68. “I don’t find that I’ve lost an ounce of enthusiasm or energy or the love of the gig. That’s not the case. It’s all bittersweet, everything that’s happening this year.”
Pierson’s history with the marching band started in the early 1970s when he was a student at San Jose State and played under longtime band director Roger Muzzy. After Muzzy stepped away, the students started running the band with Pierson arranging the music and writing the drills. Then he got his teaching credential and took a job at Piedmont Hills High School in San Jose.
Within a couple of years, the marching band — like many traditional institutions in the 1970s —dissolved, and the halftime shows at football games were performed by different high school
bands. Because of Pierson’s connection, Piedmont Hills was the only school that could play the San Jose State fight song, which always delighted alumni — including Alan and Phyllis Simpkins, San Jose State grads who were becoming influential benefactors to the school.
It was the Simpkins who called Bill Nicolosi and Pierson — they’d worked together on an alumni band — to revive the marching band as director and assistant director in 1978. In a harbinger of their future generosity, the couple told San Jose State President Gail Fullerton they would pay half the cost of their salaries and the operating budget. “They didn’t have all that much clout yet here, but they made the band thing happen,” Pierson recalls. “These two people became my surrogate parents.”
If the band needed uniforms or a truck, Phyllis Simpkins came to the rescue. “She used to call me and ask what the band needed,” said Pierson, who was promoted to band director in 1983. “I’d give her a list — and I thought it was too much — and she’d say, ‘Is that all?’ “
Pierson’s office in the San Jose State music building is decorated with band mementos from years past. But two stand out: A Tournament of Roses parade banner and a framed photo of the San Jose State band marching in the famous New Year’s Day event in 1981. Just a few years after the band’s revival, the honor was due to a chance encounter with parade officials in 1979 when the band was playing a concert in Disneyland following a game against Long Beach State.
The Spartans were asked to take part in the 1980 parade but asked for a rain check until 1981 so they could better prepare. “It turns out we were the first college band to ever be in that parade that wasn’t in the football game,” Pierson said.
Another “first” the band can credit was much closer to home. When Christmas in the Park moved downtown in the early 1980s, the Spartan Marching Band performed a standing concert and then made a circuit around what is now Plaza de Cesar Chavez playing “Here Comes Santa Claus.”
“It wasn’t even a parade
the first time,” Pierson said. “Us and Santa Claus. We were the parade.”
But while parades would bring the band nice exposure, creating the football halftime shows was where Pierson’s passion lay. He’d find inspiration for music at movies — and sometimes sneak an audio recording of a new movie theme or a pop song so he could rebuild it at home on the piano. After he figures out the theme and order of songs, he figures out the drill movements.
“It’s like a symphony almost. You have to have highs and lows,” Pierson said. “You have to figure out where it’s going to chill out a little bit, and then you build the crowd back up again.”
There was a “Woodstock” show, “Grease” show, a “Wizard of Oz” show and a “Fame” show. Another paid tribute to movie heroes, and there was even a nautical show with huge pirate ships coming down the back of the sideline. “All these shows, they’re totally fun to write,” he said. “We’ve done many costume shows that are a blast.”
But no show could beat the one that took place Nov. 4. That’s when about 300 band alumni joined this year’s band to create a Megaband tribute to Pierson. They went through all the favorites — there were 33 “dancing” Sousaphones in the stands playing the theme from “Conan the Destroyer,” one of the band’s signature bits going back 30 years — and concluded the halftime show with a soaring rendition of “My Way.”
Following the Megaband concert, Patrick Lydon — a marching band alum and former San Jose Arts Commissioner — posted a heartfelt tribute on Facebook.
“This man and this band had such a positive impact on my life, as well, I am sure the lives of thousands who have performed under his baton,” he wrote. “The SJSU Marching Band made certain that my undergrad experience was an always enriching, challenging, fun, and unforgettable one.”
And now, as Frank Sinatra sang, the end is near.
“The one I’m currently writing the last drill to, on my table, is the last drill I’m going to write for this group — ever,” Pierson said. “It’s a weird thing. It’s who you are, and you’re still the same person, but you’re not.”
But Saturday, Pierson will climb on that platform and be that person — the marching band director — for one last game.