Tarleton State Purple Pride takes the field

BY KELLI MCKEE

Contributing Writer

Tarleton State University’s Purple Pride colorguard defines what it means to have artistic and athletic abilities. As they start their journey through the winterguard season, they focus on getting competitive scores and recruiting young talent at every competition.

Connor Corbett, a senior at Tarleton, has the honor of being the Purple Pride’s head captain. He explained how the Purple Pride has evolved over the years.

“The team has been pushing more into a competitive scoring team than the year before,” Corbett said. “But originally, and still now, it is about recruiting students that watch us and become inspired.”

The Purple Pride visits competition after competition hoping to inspire young talent. With each recruitment, they hope to better their team and show what colorguard is truly about.

The team does not only focus on artistic ability, but athletic ability. By building arm strength, leg strength and cardio endurance, the Purple Pride enhances their ability to spin, run, catch and dance.

DJ Reed, a sophomore at Tarleton, explained how the muscle required for color guard is built and maintained.

“The amount of spinning we do, both with our flag or a weapon, builds up a lot of muscle in our arms and back,” Reed said. “And the running that we do on the field builds the muscle in our legs as well as stamina.”

To keep their muscles up to par and make each set muscle memory, they hold three two-hour practices a week during the football season and two three-hour practices a week during the winter season.

This schedule enables them to balance practice time with academics. After all, they are still college students. It can be hard to maintain a healthy schedule managing classes and practices, but Tarleton makes it easier for them.

Serenity Castillo, a freshman at Tarleton, explained how she practices guard while balancing academics at the same time.

“Personally, I make my classes earlier in the day to enable myself to get my classes done before practices, as well as my homework,” Castillo said. “I also give myself time to rest and do homework throughout the day, and I get my homework done earlier than competition days to set myself up for success.”

To help with academic stress, the Purple Pride helps their team by establishing rookies and veterans, also known as bigs and littles. The bigs help the littles through hard choreography and school work.

“The bigs tend to make as much time as they can to help their rookies be the best they can be,” Reed said.

Guard captains say they try to make their environment as comfortable as possible.

“We put a lot of emphasis on the traditions that we have within the color guard. Yes, there is all the work that goes into it, but there are also the common routines like the fight song,” Corbett said. “It is also trying to help them get used to college because that transition can be really jarring, and we make sure they have a safe place to be and to interact with people.”

The Tarleton Purple Pride has many goals for their season, including recruiting young talent, becoming a better team, scoring higher in competitions and having fun while doing it. They take pride in the culture of their team and keep that culture at the highest level they can.

“We keep each other motivated and are each other’s biggest supporters in the colorguard community,” Castillo said.

That community includes the Purple Pride director, Dr. Estelle Murr.

“The one thing that keeps us together most is our director. She inspires us to be a better performer and helps us find ways to improve our skills,” Castillo said.

Of course, the Purple Pride takes time to practice and get ready for competitions, but they also have to mentally prepare themselves during competitions.

“Me personally, I have to ignore everything and can’t think about the show at all, because at that point it’s just muscle memory,” Reed said. “I just listen for the cues in the music that we are performing to.”

Recruiting young student-athletes is a big part of the Purple Pride’s culture, but to get there, the students on the team had to be inspired to. They had to watch professionals and be educated on how colorguard truly works.

“What inspired me was the drum corps. I started out in the band playing my instrument, and my band director decided to take us to a drum corps show,” Corbett said. “While watching the drum corps show, I caught myself watching the flags and weapons, and I thought it looked really fun. So my sophomore year of high school is when I actually started doing colorguard.”

The Purple Pride is a tight-knit team that always focuses on culture and positivity. They do everything they can to prepare mentally and physically for competitions, and with that comes challenges and life-changing lessons learned through the art of music and athleticism.