Clemson University Tiger Band Association
The Clemson University Tiger Band Association is a support organization founded in 1979 by band directors and recent graduates of the university who had marched in the chronically underfunded Clemson marching band. (No new uniforms between 1963 and 1977, for instance.) Alumni Band members and friends of Tiger Band have donated sufficient funds over the years that CUTBA now endows a number of musical scholarships, and funds the awards to outstanding band officers and players - this, in a university that has no music school. (It's the old "U.S.C. has a music school - why should the legislature fund another one at Clemson?" argument - *sigh*).
CUTBA also funds instrument purchases that are not in the university budget, most recently helping supply several silver Sousaphones, helping complete a Tiger Band "look" of all marchers having silver instruments - no brass.
Originally an independent organization, CUTBA merged itself into the Clemson Fund program administered by the Alumni Association in the mid 1990s, and CUTBA scholarships now fall under the umbrella of Honors and Awards Day.
The Clemson Tiger Band Association sponsors an annual reunion of former band members at Homecoming under the (obvious) identity of the Alumni Band. Since being "sprung" on the Homecoming crowd on October 8, 1983 (Dr. Goodstein organized the first alumni band) Alumni Band has been an annual participant in halftime activities at the Homecoming game. Yearly attendence averages between 100 and 150 former Tiger Bandsmen. For the Golden Anniversary of Tiger Band at the Duke game on November 5, 2005, 167 former members registered for Alumni Band, more than marched in the 160-strong Block Band in 1974, the all-time high of Tiger Band players to that time. Over 130 members registered for Alumni Band 2006.
300 for the 30th
Plans are afoot to have 300 former Tiger Band members on the field in the fall of 2012, marking the 30th edition of Alumni Band.
- CUTBA
- P.O. Box 2308
- Clemson, South Carolina
- 29633-2308