Listen Live
Magic 95.5 Featured Video
CLOSE

The Marching 100 has returned to FAMU. The storied marching band known for its fancy footwork and its bombastic support of FAMU’s football team, the Rattlers, returned to the field this semester after a 653 day suspension. Robert Champion Jr., a member of the band was brutally beaten and died in a hazing incident in 2011. His death lead to an overhaul of the marching band which once numbered over 400, and the resignations of the bandleader and the school’s president. Now, with a streamlined band, a new bandleader and a strict anti-hazing policies, the FAMU 100 returned to action this holiday weekend in the MEAC/SWAC challenge.

The band returns over the objections of Champion’s family, who felt the suspension wasn’t long enough. They have filed suit against the bus company (Champion was beating during a hazing ritual on a bus during an away game) the hotel the band stayed in and FAMU. The suit remains unresolved.

“It’s too soon for the band to be back on the field simply because there is nothing to indicate the safety of student is being considered at all,” Champion’s mother, Pam Champion, told The Associated Press “I still feel there has been a rush to put the band on the field and that rush … has to do with finance. They are putting profit before safety.”

But Joe Bullard, the Tallahassee-based radio announcer who is also the longtime voice of the Marching 100, says he is happy to see the band back on the field.

Their performance in Orlando began with a moment of silence for hazing victims.

FAMU’s Marching Band Returns After Hazing Suspension  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

1 2Next page »