Color guard is more complicated than their mesmerizing choreography appears to the audience.

“It’s a way to interact with people who enjoy marching band,” freshman Caitlyn Reinard said. 

If you’ve ever seen their performances you may have noticed the intricate details of the choreography. 

“It takes a couple of days to clean it all up and about a week to learn, but that’s with you practicing at home,” sophomore Ella Gardner said. “It matters what we are doing in that movement, if it is flag, rifle or swing flags.”

Choreography is an important aspect of color guard.

“It is how we express the story of our work,” junior Zoey Williams said. “We are such a big visual aspect of marching band, and the choreography we learn is how we put that story on the field.”

In order to perfect their choreography, the color guard team has to frequently practice, including zero hour and in Block 1 with the band. They practice on Wednesdays after school for two hours, as well.

“We have to wake up every morning and be on the field by 7 and then we practice till 9 every single day,” Reinard said. 

During practice, the team does different activities to prepare for their shows. 

“We usually warm up on equipment and then we work on all of our movements for the band,” Zoey Williams said. “And we do a stretch circle to get ready – if you don’t stretch, you’re going to be hurting later.” 

After all of this, the team has memorization tests to make sure they are ready. 

“We will be in the wrestling room running through our movements while our coach, Ashlee (LaRue), takes us out one by one,” Gardner said. “We have to do the test and know the counts with it.”

The color guard performs at halftime of home football games and also competes with the marching band. 

“We do competitions about every week or two in October, so we only get to do like three or four,” Williams said. 

This year, gloves were introduced as a way to protect their hands.

“We have a lot of black poles and when they get out into the sun they get hot. We don’t like to touch them, but the gloves help keep that away,” Senior Kam Corbin said. “They’re pretty cool, however when it comes to using them with the actual flag, it does kind of suck because it limits some of the movement.” 

After high school they get the chance to continue guarding with companies like Drum Corp International. 

“You audition for a band and you join that band and you work really hard and learn a big number and you go compete with that,” Williams said. “It’s like an adult marching band.”