The true story of the time Ohio University’s alumni band fought the Miami of Ohio football team

Editor’s note: This story was originally published as an e-book titled “The Marching Band Refused to Yield” in 2013.

“’Cause the players tried to take the field/The marching band refused to yield/Do you recall what was revealed?/The day the music died.” — ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean

Scott Coffey felt something was wrong. He and the rest of the Ohio University Marching 110 were playing the final song of their halftime set. It was the 1992 homecoming game. Homecoming was a big show for the Marching 110, and the band was (in Coffey’s words) “grooving.” So why, the saxophone player wondered, were the fans booing? Ohio’s home crowd never booed the Marching 110.

Then he saw them. Coffey played in the third row from the back, but at 6-foot-2 he could see the visiting team’s sideline in front of the Ohio student section. A handful of Miami (of Ohio) University football players were throwing and kicking footballs right in front of the band.

Normally teams waited for the band to clear out before taking the field, or they warmed up on another part of the field. But there was Ohio’s archrival Miami — during homecoming, no less — occupying almost the same space as the student marching band. Coffey couldn’t believe it. Neither could the crowd.

The 100–200 members of the alumni band had just finished performing, and they were incensed. This was disrespectful. The alumni band members who were still on the field began waving and yelling at Miami’s special teams players to let them know they were not welcome near the student band.

Coffey was the 110’s field commander that season. He had trained incoming members in marching fundamentals and was responsible for keeping the band’s marching and maneuvering sharp. His attention drifted to the sideline as he tried to focus on the music and choreography. His training told him, “No matter what happens on the sidelines, the show must go on.” But what was happening on the sidelines?

The alumni band members couldn’t get the players’ attention, possibly because a combination of the music and crowd booing made it almost impossible to hear on the field.

Instinctively, the alumni band formed a wall to protect the student band, putting themselves between Miami players and the 110. The crowd roared in approval. At this point, the band could no longer hear itself play — probably a first for the 110 inside Peden Stadium.

It was inevitable. A Miami football player and a band member tangled and fell to the ground.

The rest of the Miami football team was taking the field, and they were bewildered to see one of their teammates underneath some guy carrying a horn. Moments later a kicked ball fell into the ranks of the student 110 during a dance break, and a Miami player ran into the band’s formation to catch it. Two alumni band members gave the player chase. A Miami coach dashed across the field towards the alumni band guys. Miami’s players jumped up and down the way some guys do when they’re about to see a fight.

The musicians in the formation surrounding Coffey looked at him, their wide eyes saying, “What are you going to do, Scott? What are we going to do?”

Coffey’s first instinct was to put down his instrument and run to join his “Band of Brothers,” as he’d later call them.

“These guys were loyal beyond measure to each other,” Coffey later said. “I believe the alums still look at the program the same way. That’s what it was about in those days.”

If he ran to help, the 110 would collapse.

His gut said, “Go.”

His training said, “Stay.”

It all happened very quickly.

Following orders

“Our show was a little long,” said 110 trumpet player Matthew Brunner. “We can’t change whatever we did. We started our last song.”

“I was concerned about homecoming. I’m pretty sure the Athletic people gave me two or three more minutes, which was perfect,” said Sylvester Young, the Marching 110’s director from 1990–96. “When their team started coming back, we were still on the field. We were still operating in that gray zone, which we thought had been approved. They came back, and of course, the football players didn’t care.”

Young was in his third year as the director of the 110, having recently succeeded Ronald P. Socciarelli, a beloved director and larger-than-life character who passed away in 2012. It was Young on the podium on Oct. 17, 1992, but the seniors in the band had been reared by Socciarelli.

“While I was on the podium my focus was somewhat divided between looking at my band and letting them read my mind that ‘I will break your neck’ [if you stop playing] and then looking to actually see what was going on around me,” Young said.

Young said the Miami football team was “totally disrespectful of the presence of the band on the field.”

Here’s the side of the story that Ohio University students, fans and alumni have never heard before, the side that doesn’t get told over pitchers at Lucky’s and The Pigskin on Court Street.

The Miami players meant no disrespect.

They were following orders.

Head coach Randy Walker was unhappy with the team’s sloppy first-half performance, and he let his players know about it at halftime.

“He had us go back out early, the special teams players,” said Miami kick returner Shean Williams. “He wanted the team out early, so we were first. We didn’t spend a lot of time in the halftime locker room like we usually do.”

Williams said he and Miami assistant coach Terry Hoeppner were told by a game official that the band had gone over its allotted time and that Miami’s kickers and return men were entitled to the field.

So, to sum up: The band had gone long, but due to a miscommunication its director thought it had enough time. Miami’s head coach wanted the team on the field NOW after its sorry first-half performance. Miami’s assistant coach had permission from a game official for the players to use the field. Miami’s special teams players were told by their coach to use the field.

“We were literally in the middle of the halftime show,” Williams said.

The wall

As more Miami players came onto the field, the alumni band formed a wall between the players and the band.

“To form the human wall was unprecedented,” said 110 bass drummer Mark Crouse. “As alumni, a lot of times we talk about what it was like to be in this band, and when you try to explain it to someone who wasn’t a member, it really doesn’t translate or sink in.”

Alumni band trombone player Mike Kukral said footballs fell into the ranks of the alumni band inside the wall.

“A couple people picked them up and threw them into the OU fan section,” Kukral said. “We weren’t going to give them back to the Miami players.”

Kukral and a Miami assistant coach got into it verbally. A photo of the confrontation appeared on the front page of Ohio’s student newspaper, The Post. Kukral said the football team had no business being on the field. Why couldn’t they kick their footballs somewhere else? It’s a large stadium with plenty of room, Kukral reasoned.

But it was too late for reason.

“Times Change, Memories Remain” was the theme of Ohio’s 1992 homecoming week, and nowhere was that more true than on the sidelines before the game.

Bad blood

The Marching 110 and Miami had history.

In 1979 the Marching 110 marched onto Miami Field in Oxford, Ohio, at halftime with an upside-down Miami flag. Kukral, who was a member of the 110 that season, said the incident was a prank played on a freshman by some upperclassmen. David Shaffer, who was a graduate assistant with the Miami University Marching Band at the time and later its director, said the incident almost caused a riot in the stands.

Shaffer and other members of the Miami community believe the 110’s director at the time, Socciarelli, condoned the “prank,” and that Miami did not receive a proper apology. “Even though it was 34 years ago, many still remember the incident for what it was: a direct insult to Miami University,” said Shaffer.

As a result, said Shaffer, the Marching 110 has not been invited to play in Oxford since 1979. Likewise, Miami’s band has not traveled to Athens since 1979, according to Shaffer. Shaffer said that 110 director Richard Suk asked Miami officials about bringing the 110 to Oxford again, but the request was denied. Suk did not respond to a request for an interview.

“The OU band is simply not welcome in Oxford,” Shaffer said.

What was already a bitter athletic rivalry between two of Ohio’s oldest colleges had spilled over to the teams’ marching bands as well.

Before the 1992 game, Williams said members of the alumni band chanted the popular Ohio University cheer “Muck Fiami!”

Members of the football team yelled back.

“This thing was set,” Williams said.

The melee

The shouting before kickoff turned into shoving at halftime when the alumni band rose up and formed the wall.

“A shall-we-say active alumni band member put his tuba or whatever it was in the way to try to block me from catching the ball,” Williams said. “As I was catching a punt, they hit me, and I came back and retaliated. I started getting into a scuffle. Then the coach (Terry Hoeppner) gets involved, and so does my teammate, Lakumba Wallace.”

By “retaliated,” Williams says he meant pushing and shoving, of which there was give and take on both sides.

Alumni band member Kukral dismissed the suggestion that members of the alumni band were drunk.

“The homecoming parade starts at 9 in the morning,” he said. “You have to drive, park your car, walk to the parade route, rehearse, practice for an hour. It’s all morning, a three or four-mile march. Then you have lunch on the field. You practice on the field for an hour with the regular band. You have to know the music, know where you’re going to stand, know the choreography, all for a show you do once a year. You just couldn’t function (while impaired). It wouldn’t work. Saturday night, once you’re done with the show, then you go out and have a wild time.”

Williams said whoever was trying to knock the ball away with their large brass instrument fell on top of him.

“(The instrument) was a huge thing, and I was trying to protect myself on the ground,” Williams said. “The alumni people started coming on top of us. They’re trying to protect him. Lakumba Wallace and my coach (Hoeppner) are trying to protect me, and then everyone on the football team comes out, and that’s when it got real crazy.”

Marching 110 trumpet player Brunner was in the front line of the student band’s formation.

“The ball was coming down right in front of the band,” Brunner said. “One of the guys went out to receive the ball, and a couple of alumni band members went out to get to the ball before he did. The player caught the ball. The alumni went out to rip the ball out of their hands. A Miami coach sprinted out and tackled one of the alumni band members.”

There is a video on YouTube that shows the melee. Part of it appears to take place after Williams and the alumni band member had fallen to the ground. The alumni band had formed its wall to protect the band. A punt falls into the ranks of the 110. It is fielded by a Miami player between members of the student band. Two members of the alumni band run out to rip the ball away from the player. A man, presumably a coach, sprints across the field and tackles someone.

Ohio’s student newspaper, The Post, identified the coach as assistant coach Terry Hoeppner. Both Hoeppner and head coach Randy Walker are deceased. Three Miami assistant coaches who played for Miami in 1992 refused to comment. Miami’s current sports information director declined to make any university personnel available. Emails to the Miami football team’s former sports information director were unreturned.

The Post article said Hoeppner ran 20 yards before tackling a member of the alumni band, and a witness told The Post that the assistant coach tried to throw at least one punch, although it was unclear who threw the first punch.

At this point, the crowd’s anger peaked, and a similar thought circuited the 110.

“I looked at the guy who played the C-hole drum, which was the next up from mine, which is the largest drum, and I said, ‘You want to get in on this?’” said 110 drummer Crouse.

“Man, I did everything but speed the tempo up so they could finish early,” said 110 director Young.

The student band was ready to come apart.

Just one member of the Marching 110 stepping out of formation would have broken its ranks.

The decision

If there was anyone in the band who would have followed into a fight, it was its spirited field commander Scott Coffey.

“In that moment, there was such intensity and incredible energy and also at the same time incredible questioning,” Coffey said. “What is the right thing to do? It’s sensory overload. You’re seeing things happening on the sideline. The band is playing. The crowd is booing — a crazy amount of noise that just grew out of nothing. It was absolutely unbelievable to think that that crowd could be so unified. I never heard any crowd noise in any venue ever that could top what was coming from the OU student section when they were pissed off at the Miami guys.”

Coffey, a senior, thought for a moment.

“I really wanted to go up there, knowing my troops would follow,” Coffey said.

He didn’t react immediately, and this proved crucial.

“I didn’t go up there because right in front of me was one of the smallest band members I can ever remember having in the band, and I can see her in my line of sight as I thought about how I wanted to make my way up there and take part in this thing,” Coffey said. “She’s barely five feet tall, and she’d be mixing it up with these humongous football players. I had their safety in mind when I made the decision that we’re not going anywhere. We’re going to stick to the plan.”

It would be easy for Coffey to now say that he had the safety of the group in mind the whole time, to whitewash his history of these events with a coat of adult responsibility, to say he never had a second thought about jumping into the scrum. But he did have second thoughts, both in the moment and afterward.

“I’ve second-guessed that decision many, many times, but I really believe it was the right thing to do,” Coffey said. “Now at my advanced age I can look back and say, ‘That could have been the undoing of a lot of good things we had done.’”

Coffey emailed me after our interview to emphasize that every member of the band made the same decision he did in terms of not breaking ranks, and he said he does not deserve special recognition. Coffey receives it here because Young called him out individually after the performance.

“Our director Mr. Sylvester Young told us he was proud of us that we all stayed in place and did our jobs,” drummer Crouse said. “He also said that as it was going down he prayed to God, ‘Dear Lord, please let Coffey stay in place. ’Cause if he goes, I know I’m going to lose half of them.’”

“What I did was, I did nothing,” Coffey said. “I made the conscious decision to do nothing. I don’t want it to sound like I had a more active role in preventing some atrocity. I have no idea how things would have turned out at that time. There was a side of me that thought I would have taken these guys into battle with me anytime, anywhere, and there was a side of me that wanted to try that out that day.”

“Scott is a very high-energy person,” former 110 director Young said. “If Scott maintained his discipline — it was sort of a chain of command type of thing. All it took was one person in the band to make a move, and that would have gave everyone permission that it was all right to do that. Scott was the main one. If he had moved, the band would have stopped playing, really. Scott was the key person in that whole situation.

“It was extremely hard. Take my word for it. We reflected on it during that next week and over the years, and the words that come to mind are it took all of their concentration not to break the ranks … I have to give Socciarelli credit for that. When I took this band, they were extremely disciplined.”

Coffey and the rest of the 110 checked their impulses, giving Miami’s coaches, whom Young credits with defusing the situation, time to separate the players from the alumni band. The Post reported that stadium security also were on the field.

That timing was fortunate. Moments later the 110 executed its signature drive-off and made a clean exit through the sideline right where the football team would have been standing had the alumni band not formed a wall and the coaches not cleared the field.

Sensing that the real victor in the halftime skirmish was their own student marching band, the crowd erupted, and perhaps it’s apocryphal, but those who were present say it’s the loudest they’ve ever heard the crowd at Peden Stadium. Or maybe it’s true — the crowd of 20,551 was the largest in school history, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

“I don’t know that any of us were actually touching the ground,” Coffey said.

“The thing I remember most was (Young’s) reaction,” Brunner said. “He’s up on the ladder, watching this happen. We hit the last note. The crowd explodes. He had this look on his face like, ‘That’s my band.’”

The aftermath

The incident made ESPN, and stories appeared in Ohio’s student paper The Post, the Columbus Dispatch and other news outlets. The Mid-American Conference chided both schools for “unsportsmanlike conduct,” but it did not issue any punishments. Because this was before the Internet as we know it and before nonstop cable sports news, the altercation was soon forgotten.

“The most intriguing thing about what happened at OU in ’92 is that no one besides OU and Miami remembers it,” Williams said. “That’s the difference between a few years of technology.”

In 2002 a Miami assistant coach made the news for assaulting a fan following a game at Marshall. The incident received massive coverage online and on cable. Miami’s head coach at the time was Terry Hoeppner.

“What happened at our game would have been on TV all day,” Williams said. “People would have been talking about me and the band members. It would have been bad publicity for everyone. Instead, the ref gave OU a 15-yard penalty, we went and played a football game, and we went home.”

Miami won, 23–21. Williams claims the tussle with the alumni band sparked both him and his teammates in the second half.

And for the record, Williams said Hoeppner was a mentor and a friend all the way through to his coach’s death, and that his coach’s actions in 1992, which Williams can’t recall in detail, were in defense of his players, who were always his priority.

“He used to tell me that if he hadn’t helped me out I would have gotten beaten up by OU’s alumni band,” Williams said, with a bit of a laugh.

What if?

It’s difficult to measure the magnitude of an event that didn’t happen, but it’s safe to say that more than a few lives would have changed had the members of the Ohio University Marching 110 broken ranks and confronted the Miami football team.

Members of Ohio’s alumni and student bands could have been injured. Miami players and coaches could have been suspended. Without Socciarelli’s clout, the entire Marching 110 might have been suspended by the university, dealing the program a blow. Game and school officials who were part of the miscommunication that led to the band and the football team being on the same field at the same time might have been disciplined, their careers rearranged.

Then there’s the nightmare scenario.

Many Ohio University fans only attended games to see the band play. Former Ohio head coach Jim Grobe noted this in 1997: “When I came here I was told, and it was correct, that people would come for the first half, until the Marching 110 performed. A lot of fans stayed until that, then took off.”

If the 110 had joined the fray, members of that loyal student section might have poured onto the field to support them, causing a riot.

The Ohio football team was in the locker room during the incident. Consider the scene it would have encountered as it took the field after halftime if the bands, fans and the Miami football team were brawling. One can only speculate how Bobcat players would have reacted.

But none of that happened.

Times Change, Memories Remain

No one who was present remembers any injuries deeper than bumps and bruises. An unnamed alumni band member reportedly was ejected. No charges were pressed. No suspensions were handed out. Both sides apologized, and the MAC wagged its finger.

Miami’s kick returner Williams said he had a meeting the following week with a member of Miami’s administration. He was not punished. Months later he took the LSAT. Today Williams is a lawyer at Johnny Cochrane’s law firm in Atlanta.

Drummer Crouse works in product development.

Alumni trombone player Kukral is a professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

Trumpet player Brunner is now the director of bands at Temple University. He uses the incident as a teachable moment for his students.

Young came out of retirement this year to rebuild the Marching 100 at Florida A&M University, which suspended its band following the hazing-related death of a drum major in 2011. When FAMU Interim President Larry Robinson announced Young’s hiring, he praised the director’s “strong discipline.”

“When one looks back at their career, and they put markers on events to create an outline of the most significant things they learned, that would clearly be a marker,” Young said. “I learned a lot. Number one, don’t trust the athletics (department) with the time. Check it. Check it again. I learned there is such a thing as you must have a disciplined band. Discipline is the number one thing before the music even starts, within the culture of the students, within the band itself.”

Coffey — the senior field commander who suppressed the urge to break ranks — went on to direct school bands for 17 years and is now a high school principal in Central Ohio.

“I’m definitely on the establishment side and off the antiestablishment side these days,” he said. “I have mellowed out quite a bit.”

The Marching 110, which calls itself The Most Exciting Band in the Land, has entrenched its status as one of the top college marching bands in the country. Its contemporary song selections and funky dance routines have led to viral videos and invitations to play in front of pro football crowds and march in nationally televised parades. Alumni still claim a “Band of Brothers” mentality.

“To this day, anytime you look at a clock and see it’s 1:10, or you are walking through a hotel and see room 110, or Route 110 or 110 on a license plate, I think you will find that any 110 member, to a person, will say HI-O or think about the band,” Crouse said. “It’s truly an experience that stays with you forever.”

The consensus today is that what happened in 1992 was a confluence of unfortunate events. As OU associate director of athletics Gregory Ianni told The Post in 1992, it was “just one of those things.”

It’s worth noting that the song the Marching 110 played at the end of the 1992 homecoming halftime show was “Fool in the Rain” by Led Zeppelin.

“Fool in the Rain” is a song about a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Joe Donatelli publishes “The Bald Truth” on Substack. Subscribe below for more of his writing.