Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Visiting bands welcome again for CIAA games

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina -- And the band played on….

The bands that are a big part of the HBCU game-day experience will be allowed to play in the CIAA this season.

The athletics directors from all the CIAA schools held a conference call with commissioner Jacqie McWilliams on Thursday morning and decided that home-team athletics directors will make the decision on whether visiting team’s band will play, said Tonia Walker, athletics director at WSSU.

Earlier this year, the NCAA mandated a strict 20-minute halftime would be enforced this season for all divisions of football. That means penalties could be called if bands are not off the field before the start of the second half.

With that in mind, there was talk of the CIAA limiting its halftimes to allowing only the home team’s band to play. But Walker said that won’t happen at WSSU home games this season.

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