BRUCETON, Tenn. — Central High School’s football homecoming brought the band back together — the Fan Band, that is.
The original Tiger Fan Band were the Grand Marshals in Central’s homecoming parade last Friday, and the group was as spirited as ever.
Riding in the bed of a pickup truck, the ladies waved and cheered at the crowds lined up along Broad Street. They flew miniature Tigers flags, rang cowbells, and even donned custom t-shirts, upon which was printed their signature phrase: “How bad do you want it Tigers?”
After the parade, they met in the high school library, where, once upon a time, they used to plan each week’s game-day festivities and attire. Group members traded stories about the Fan Band’s history.
Humble Beginnings
“[Our group] was mostly parents and friends and grandparents [of players],” said Paulette Crews, one of the founders. “Every week we’d meet in here and come up with some idea of just funny things that didn’t cost much money.”
Crews said the group got its start in 1987 after an especially rowdy game against Huntingdon in which the Tigers beat the Mustangs.
“They turned the lights out on us that night,” she recalled.
During that time in Tiger football history, the team was just coming out of what newspapers of the day called the “dark ages”. For nearly 20 years, Central had more losing seasons, fewer players, and even less community support than they had before or since.
The group of ladies decided that every great team must have an even greater support base. That was their motivation.
Let’s Make Some Noise
Once the group got rolling along, they made custom attire to wear at games, made noisemakers, and devised pranks and other antics.
The ladies also carried accessories, such as custom-decorated umbrellas that they worked into their act.
Aside from Fan Band members’ contributions, one of the group’s most dedicated supporters, Martin Batte, provided his own additions.
He made a stuffed dummy named Willie, dressed to represent whatever opposing team the Tigers were playing that week, and paraded it around for fans to jeer at before kickoff. He also helped hang a banner across the highway leading into town that read “Tiger Territory.”
Several members showed off keepsakes from that era.
Suzanne Snider brought an original pair of shoes that she had decorated. Kathy Wood brought along a Tigers sweatshirt, a decorated cowbell, and clinic bowl hat that her father wore to the 1989 state championship game. Of course, several of the ladies brought along their instruments, as well.
The instruments were a signature hallmark of the Tiger Fan Band, something neither they, nor the players, could do without.
Brenda Bullington recalled a game at USJ, where the opposing side’s marching band had complained about the Fan Band’s drums being too loud. So they left them in the car. That is, until Central started losing.
“At halftime, we said, ‘Get them instruments out,'” Bullington recalled. “We got them out. We won!”
“We took those drums because [the team] couldn’t play without hearing them,” Renee Ward joked. “The boys had to have that.”
Ward was one of the group’s bass drum players, Mrs. Debbie Cook played snare drum, Martha Neal played trumpet, and Crews played trombone. If someone didn’t play an instrument, they would have something that made noise, whether is was a clacker, shaker, duck call, or a cowbell.
Of course, the ladies would also sing.
Among Jennie Nunamaker’s favorite memories of the group was from a game at Camden, where they lined up in safari hats and sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
The Tigers won, she said, in front of the biggest crowd Camden had ever seen at the time.
They even wrote a song called “Tiger Town Tennessee”, a reworded rendition of “Rocky Top”.
Win, Lose, or Draw
It did not matter to the Fan Band or the rest of the Tigers’ fans what the numbers on the scoreboard said, they cheered for their team regardless.
In December, 1990, after the team’s devastating state championship loss to Trousdale, Jackson Sun reporter Tom Corwin wrote:
“Suddenly it was very cold and quiet in the stands. But then the singing began.
‘We love you Tigers, oh yes we do,’ the fans sang, as tear-streaked cheerleaders wandered over to join in.
Afterward [Jamie] Williams sat on a bench just below the stands and pulled his jersey over his face. But behind him, still standing, the fans kept singing.“
The Clinic Bowl
Those state championship appearances for the Tigers were among the most memorable experiences for the original Fan Band.
According to the group, the entire town of Bruceton shut down to watch the Tigers play.
Before the 1989 state championship game, Tigers fans held a large pep rally outside the Holiday Inn where they stayed. Cook recalled that it drew quite a lot of attention.
“We made the 10 o’clock news that night,” she said, laughing.
Many refer to the 1989 Clinic Bowl as the “Ice Bowl”, because on the first day, there was a quarter-inch of ice on nearly everything.
Snider recalled that the Central vs. DCA game was on a two-hour delay for officials to scrape ice off the field.
“It was so slick,” she said, “if you stood up to holler, you’d slide down.”
The Fan Band almost didn’t have their instruments.
Ward and Cook explained that, due to the stadium’s policy, they weren’t allowed to take their instruments in. But that didn’t stop the Fan Band.
“We snuck the bass drum through in an overcoat,” one of them explained.
Alumni and fans from Camden and Huntingdon came out to support the Tigers, and some rival football coaches even brought their teams to support the Tigers during their 1989 championship game.
Impact
Much had been written about the Fan Band during its heyday.
Articles and photos of them appeared, not only in the local papers, but in the Jackson Sun, Tennessean, and Commercial Appeal as well.
One of the group’s founding members, Jennifer Cantrell, who has unfortunately passed on, was quoted in the Jackson Sun on October 27, 1989.
The article reads:
“Women of Bruceton go all out to show their support for the Tigers, said Jennifer Cantrell, manager of H.I.S. Outlet.
‘I believe the women are more excited than the men are. The women sit together and beat cow bells, holler and scream and make all the noise we can,’ she said. ‘The men don’t sit with us anymore. They think we’ve gone out of our minds.‘”
Those larger, more distant publications wrote about the Tigers’ fan base in those days, and the Fan Band itself, in such a way that made their support seem rare for such a small, rural place.
Passing the Torch
Crews was quick to point out that they didn’t invent the idea of rallying behind the Tigers, and their group was welcomed by past generations.
“When we came along, they were really supportive of us because they had done it in their day,” she said.
The Fan Band hopes their return sparked some of that same fire for a new generation of Tiger fans.
“You have to have talent. You have to have coaches. You have to have all these things to have a winning season,” Bullington said. “But one of the most important things is to have those people in the stands behind you — a voice to hear and know. It gives them motivation.”
That motivation was on full display Friday night, when the original Tiger Fan Band brought their drums back to the stands for homecoming. The Tigers delivered, too, beating Collinwood 12-7.
Whether it was the noise, the nostalgia, or a little bit of luck, it was hard not to give the Fan Band some credit in that win.
Their motto hasn’t changed in almost 40 years, whether it’s printed on a t-shirt or shouted from the stands: “How bad do you want it, Tigers?”
For at least one night, fans relished in the experience of having the drums, the chants, the noise, and the ladies behind it all, in the stands of Joe T. Herndon stadium once again.
