Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

The most popular sport in the south, football, is a game that stumbled out of rugby and soccer. In 1823, English soccer player, William Ebb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it, inspiring the students of Princeton to become involved in a sport they called “ball town”. The first football game was played on November 6th of 1869 in Brunswick, New Jersey between the Rutgers and Princeton. The game was observed by one-hundred spectators and the players wore no helmets or uniforms. The players kept score by giving a team one point each time the goal line was crossed. The Rutgers won the game with a final score of 6 to 4. Walter Camp, the father of American football, later evolved the rules of the game as a coach and athletic director
The stadium is well known for its hosting duties of the SEC baseball tournament, showcasing the top twelve teams in the Southeastern Conference. However, most Friday nights, the stadium is occupied by Hoover football fans and players. Once the band arrives, we line up and march into the stadium to our cadence. Marching begins right outside of the buses, continues into the stadium, and ends once we have reached the section of the stadium, which has been designated for the band, prior to the fans arrival. The band plays a few stand chants while the Buccanettes dance along. Once the clock strikes 10 minutes until the game, the band marches behind the visiting stands to line up for pregame. Pregame includes the entire band marching onto the field to a cadence, turning towards the audience, standing at attention, then playing the national anthem and alma matter. After these two songs are played the band will march into a new formation on the field that will allow the players to run through while the band plays the fight song. Buccanettes stand in front of the band doing our stand dance to this tune, the cheerleaders held a huge sign for the players to run through and the colorguard would run across the field with large Buccaneer flags. The audience’s reaction made the all the previous hours of getting ready worthwhile. The student section was filled with shakers, lettermen, and hundreds of students. The rest of the stadium was filled with fans from the community. After pregame, the band would march back to the stands to begin more stand chants. The band played tunes such as ESPN, sunshine, the fight song, word up, and many others. At the beginning of the second quarter we would again march out of the stadium where stretching would take place to warm up for the halftime show. The first thing