When it comes to marching bands, size doesn’t matter.

“We are one of the smallest marching bands in the Big 12. People think that you need to be huge to be good. We can still be good with what we have,” said Timothy Oliver, director of Kansas University’s Marching Jayhawks and a professor in KU’s department of music and dance.

The Kansas University Marching Jayhawks perform last fall before the football game with the Missouri Tigers.

The typical size of a marching band in the Big 12 Conference is 280 or 285 students, and some of the Texas schools have bands numbering more than 400 musicians.

The Marching Jayhawks boast a comparatively slim 200 students in the band, which is the centerpiece of halftime shows at KU football games. That’s fine with Oliver.

“I think that we stack up very well. We could go toe to toe with any one of them. There are always things that can be fixed, but I don’t think we’re lacking anything against our conference peers,” he said

“The one thing that we have is some history and tradition.”

Indeed.

The Marching Jayhawks have been a feature of crisp fall afternoons at KU for about 110 years.

“We like to think of ourselves as part of the atmosphere and among the strongest supporters of the football team,” Oliver said.

The band performs at halftime during every KU home game and usually makes two or three road games a year.

“This season, we are planning to take the full band to Iowa State on Aug. 31 for Coach (Mark) Mangino’s first game. We want to be there for it. The other game (the band will travel to) is Tulsa on Sept. 28,” Oliver said.

Though the Marching Jayhawks are a comparatively small band for the Big 12, just try organizing a road trip for 200 people.

“We need to have five or six buses, meal stipends for the kids, we stay overnight. It costs money to take the band places. A trip to Tulsa would cost about $15,000,” Oliver said.

“But it’s a good time, and it’s always nice to get out and perform for a different audience.”

Ignite enthusiasm

Oliver, 32, is beginning his third year as director of the Marching Jayhawks.

Before coming to KU, the Centralia, Mo., native was at Florida State University, working on his doctorate in music education and serving as a graduate teaching assistant with the school’s marching band program.

The Marching Jayhawks are one of 11 ensemble bands at KU within the department of music and dance.

Oliver estimates that nearly 80 percent of the enrollment in the Marching Jayhawks an academic course that students receive grades for is made up of nonmusic majors from just about every discipline at KU.

The band’s mission is to represent the department of music and dance, as well as the School of Fine Arts, at university-sanctioned athletic contests and other campus and community events.

“We are one of the largest academic classes that has a really high degree of visibility at the university. We’re out there six games a year, a few away games, we do the homecoming parade and other nonfootball events,” Oliver said.

“The perception is that it’s some type of extracurricular activity, and it’s not. And it’s certainly not a club.”

The reality of the band is that it’s a ton of hard work.

Musicians practice from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, plus a “continuity rehearsal” on gameday Saturdays. And then, of course, there’s the halftime performance.

“We’re wanting to perform at the highest level. We want to entertain and ignite enthusiasm and interest in the football team,” Oliver said.

‘Stick with it’

Much of the band is made up of members who return year after year.

One of them is Tim Swindoll, 21, McPherson, a pre-med student who will be a senior in the fall. It will be his fourth year in the Marching Jayhawks.

Swindoll is part of the band’s leadership team, a group of students to whom Oliver delegates tasks to help him manage the band. Swindoll is the leader of the saxophone section.

“I’m going into medicine, and this provides me with a lot of leadership experience for that. As a section leader and a member of the leadership group, you have to coordinate sections in the band, and you do a lot of communicating with people,” Swindoll said.

“And I enjoy it, too. It’s a lot of fun.”

Some KU students are intimidated by the thought of enrolling in the Marching Jayhawks, thinking they’ll get overwhelmed by the commitment.

“A lot of people are scared of marching band. They don’t think they’re going to have time. We’re trying to overcome that perception,” Swindoll said.

“My advice to people who are thinking of trying the band is stick with it. Some weeks get hard. But the benefits of the band outweigh the time you put into it.”