The Sound & The Fury brings the energy to Texan gamedays

BY MICAELA SULLIVAN

Multimedia Journalist

During every football game, there are plenty of different spirit organizations that fill the stadium. However, there is only one that keeps the energy quite like The Sound & The Fury marching band.

Established in 1919, the band has been a proud representative of Tarleton State University for 106 years.

From his arrival in 2009, Gary Westbrook has been the head marching band director for the past 16 years. He was brought to Tarleton to create a different atmosphere for the band and grow the program.

“I think it is important to note that the growth is not linear,” Westbrook said. “When I arrived in 2009, the football team was very successful and made the NCAA Division II playoffs in that first year. The band had a membership of 90 students. … The university asked to have a band of 125 one day. By my second year, we had grown to 120.”

Since that year, the band has averaged a size of about 140 members, with the largest being in 2012 at 161 members.

“We have been near that enrollment twice in the past 3 years,” Westbrook said.

In 2023, The Sound & The Fury had an enrollment of 160, one away from the previous set record. In 2025, the band stands at 155 members.

Westbrook says that the transition to Division 1, the success of the football team and the growth of Tarleton State’s Band Day has helped grow the program and increase the positive climate and community in the band.

The Sound & The Fury has many traditions; however, many of the best-known traditions started with Westbrook.

“When I arrived, I was told that the ‘tradition’ for pre-game was to march on, play the national anthem and the fight song and then march off,” Westbrook said. “So I created a pregame in my first year to get us through the year: fight song entry, ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas,’ ‘National Anthem,’ ‘Color Song’ and then the tunnel.”

In the early 2010’s the band tragically lost a beloved member, Sade Lowry.

Westbrook said Lowry was beloved by all who knew her. So, he chose to remember her in the pregame tradition by marching to a diamond because her Tau Beta Sigma nickname was “Black Diamond.”

In 2015, Westbrook added the song Texan Way, recently renamed Texan Made, to the pregame performance.

This 2025 season has been one for the books, as the football team made the third round of the FCS Playoffs for the first time.

Alongside their success, the band has been there every step of the way, hooting and hollering and making the atmosphere of the game off the charts. To Westbrook, the band being there is important because it brings results.

“We are there, we are loud, we create distraction, noise and chaos, consistently attempting to get the other team’s mind off what they are trying to do and focus on us,” Westbrook said. “That is one of our major reasons for existing: athletic support. We strive to be the best or, at the very least, among the best at this.”

Working side by side with Westbrook is Tracy White, the assistant director of the marching band and director of the Texan Thunder, Tarleton’s volleyball band.

White graduated from Tarleton with a bachelor’s in music and came back to Tarleton 10 years later to get her master’s in music education.

White said she’s had the privilege to teach at Tarleton for the past four years and said the band adds to the gameday experience.

“TSTF is a family. We have fun and support each other. I’ve experienced that as a student and now as a director, and it’s a pretty awesome thing,” White said.

Because of the band’s growing footprint, The Sound & The Fury now has the opportunity to march in the D-Day parade in Normandy, France.

After being invited and performing in the 2019 Pearl Harbor parade, according to Westbrook, one of the people organizing the event liked the band’s performance so much that they reached out in 2023 to invite the band to perform in Normandy.

“Because of the cost, these are events that I normally do not pursue. But after looking into the history and the historical ties between Tarleton State and Normandy, it was unavoidable; this was something that we needed to make happen,” Westbrook said.

Westbrook co-invited the Corp of Cadets, to which the university agreed, and has worked hard to make The Sound & The Fury marching in this parade a reality.

However, gamedays, rehearsals and even roll checks could not be done without the support of the university.

“I always want to thank our university administration for their incredible support of the Tarleton State Athletic Bands. Many of my colleagues across the nation struggle—mainly because there is a disconnect between what they want and what the administration wants,” Westbrook said. “Dr. Hurley, VP Uryasz, Dean El-Badawi and department head Troy Robertson are amazingly aligned with what they want from the Tarleton State Athletic Bands and are greatly supportive of our vision of what we are and can become.”