Super Bowl XLIII: Bethune-Cookman Band to get 6 minutes of fame

DAYTONA BEACH -- Twenty-three minutes before kickoff Sunday at the Super Bowl, members of the Bethune-Cookman Marching Wildcats will be doing their thing. They get six minutes -- a performance condensed by about half -- to leave their mark on the celebrities and flashing bulbs at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium. Director Donovan Wells told the band it appears unlikely the show will be aired on NBC's pregame.

With NBC selling 30-second spots to advertisers for $3 million, even any exposure for this historically black university could be incalculable. Band members, though, were holding on to a four-letter word after practice. "Keep hope alive," Darius Hatcher said. "Maybe we'll get a clip," Kourtney Lewis added.



THE PREPARATION

Even still, Wells is sure the 320 musicians and dancers won't be star-struck. He's making sure with some 15 hours of practice in advance of the big six minutes. For about two hours Tuesday, band members played with precision, sprinted, marched and danced their routines over and over in search of perfection.

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PAHOKEE, Fla. -- This is not a happy story. Maybe you heard otherwise, but if you did, you heard wrong. This story isn't happy. Dead teenagers don't giggle.

This story is about the two star receivers in Super Bowl XLIII who clawed their way out of the same nook of Florida, the Cardinals' Anquan Boldin and the Steelers' Santonio Holmes, but it's also about the death and destruction they left behind. People are dying. Towns are dying. So don't believe a damn thing you've heard about the reunion of Boldin and Holmes in this Super Bowl. Not if all you've heard is hokey happiness. Because this story isn't hokey. It isn't happy.

"Kids are getting killed," Holmes says. Yes they are. "Our towns ... they're in trouble," Boldin says. Yes they are. This isn't a happy story. But it should be.

Going home

On a per capita basis, no town in the United States has better football than Pahokee. Pahokee High has been to six straight state championship games, and won five. Pahokee products are all over college football, including Wake Forest All-American cornerback Alphonso Smith and starting defensive back Janoris Jenkins of national champion Florida. Pahokee has sent more than a dozen players to the NFL, a statistically staggering feat for a city of 6,000.

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Bethune-Cookman marching band headed for Super Bowl XLIII

The Bethune-Cookman University Marching Wildcats will perform at Super Bowl XLIII. The band will take the field during the pre-game show Feb. 1 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. The Marching Wildcats will perform eight to 10 songs at approximately 6 p.m., with kickoff set for 6:28 p.m. "For a marching band, there's no bigger stage to play on than the Super Bowl playing field," B-CU band director Donovan Wells said. "We're working hard to put on a great show for all the fans."

The band has 320 musicians, not counting members of the Sophisticat Flag Corps and the 14KT Gold Dancers. The Marching Wildcats have performed at halftime shows for the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, at the pre-race show of the Daytona 500 and on "The Ellen Degeneres Show."

BCU Marching Wildcat Band - 1/2009



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