So what does this all mean?

That we are so very very close to 250/$125,000.  Please help us reach those goals.  We need just another 65 people and $39,000.

We can do this!

Bill Everitt: The "plant" ("Amos Pully" was the fictitious name for the plant, Ray Akin, my freshman year) was an upperclassman inserted into the group of incoming band members. He was a spy. When he displays a bad attitude during a meeting on day two of the initiation, he was physically removed and "thrown out" of the band. The process was physical and loud as "Amos" resisted. It was a lesson to be learned...."Sir, yes sir!"

Ray Akin: The purpose was to shock the freshmen into realizing that this was serious and bad attitudes weren't tolerated.

Dan Perkins: All I can recall is that upperclassman Randall Rogers, a drummer, was introduced with all of the other freshman at orientation as "Fred Willet." "Fred Willett" went through Orientation with us.

Mike Robinson: Since the Mustang Band was very much like a fraternity at the time, to my way of thinking, the plant was to show the freshman that you don't mess with the authority of the upperclassmen.

Rusty Meador: I do remember that the "plant" was a part of each incoming freshman class and normally would have been a 2nd year band member although that "rule" might have been stretched on occasion. Their role was somewhat dual purpose. One, to serve as what we call in the ranching business a "Judas goat" so they wouldn't scatter away. But for his role to be believable, he had to act like he was going through orientation like all the other freshmen or he would have been discovered.

Randy West: There was a two-fold reason for the plant. One, it scared the freshman, let them know to shape up. And two, it allowed the upperclassmen to stay ahead of the freshman. The freshman met every day in every camp. The plant was a spy to the whip [the upperclassman in charge of keeping the freshman on task during orientation].

Mike Robinson: In one sense they served as an observer to determine if someone was struggling with the pressure of going through orientation, but other than one or two who may have dropped out, everything usually went according to plan. As I recall, their identity was revealed to the freshmen class at the end of the week.

Stan Shipman: I strongly suspect that it was some of the students who came up with it [the plant idea] and not Drei [Dr. Irving Dreibrodt]. Coach believed in student leadership and was great at promoting an atmosphere that encouraged student initiative.

Mack Diltz: I don't think Coach had anything to do with the plant.

Randy West: Coach relied on the upperclassmen to run the band and be creative and come up with ideas. I suspect Stan Webb, John Lennox, and John Heberle came up with the idea.

Ray Akin: The next year, Bob Brandenberger was the Whip. He and Randy recruited me for the role as freshman plant. I should add here that the plant was given a funny name. Lenox was "John Dickles," I was "Amos Pulley". I think Jack Rohr may have come up with the name.

Mike Robinson: My "name" was Mike Rabbinnette because I had been nicknamed Rabbinnette from just about the second I met everyone my actual freshman year.

Mike Connors: I wish I could remember more about the freshman plants, but I do believe it may have begun with Lennox and Shipman's class. I don't recall a plant in my freshman class of '63.

Mack Diltz: I think the first year of the freshman plant was in the fall of '65. I know there was no plant in my freshman year (fall '63) and I don't think there was one the next year either.

Randy West: The plant started in 1966 with John Lennox as the first plant.

Stan Shipman: So many of the techniques developed for the band were adaptations of tactics utilized by the military and brought to M-Band basic training by our fellow bandsmen who had been through similar activities in the military.

Mike Robinson: I guess that Coach and the freshman whip are the ones who chose [who would serve as] the freshman plant and I don't know when they did it. I know they called me about two weeks before orientation started and told me I had been the one they chose. Of course, you did not have to do it. But I thought it would be fun and it was.

Rusty Meador: The plant was decided in advance by the Freshman Whip and his chosen advisors/aides and in some cases Coach would recommend someone.

Craig Stinson: I was a freshman in 1972. We were told upfront that there were 99 guys who wanted to march but we could only field 96. The decision would come at the end of the two-week orientation. Obviously the culls would come from the class of recruits.

Bill Fancher: During the summer of 1971, the incoming freshmen received several mailings from the band with information about the first week of freshman-only rehearsals ("Orientation" as it was called) and suggested summer readings including the band's history and the lyrics of the spirit songs we would need to learn. We also received a list of the names and instruments played by the incoming freshmen.

Rusty Meador: The plant (in those days) would be our ears when they [the freshman] met privately, so in some cases, not all, we knew what they were up to.

Dan Perkins: Whatever we did, the upperclassmen knew exactly what was happening. This was very frustrating, until we found out why the upperclassmen knew all we were doing and or even scheming to do before we could do anything. One of our freshman brothers was "Fred Willet." Later it was revealed to all of the freshmen class' great shock that "Fred Willet" was really Randall Rogers, an upperclassman who was planted in our freshman class to let the upperclassman know move we made! The big reveal was made sometime before we completed the first week of orientation as I recall.

Mike Robinson: Of course you had to look like a freshman and to be willing to "screw up" during practice without doing it too much. I think everyone thought I would come natural at the screwing up part.

Bill Fancher: Our class of freshmen was supposedly the largest ever, with nearly 40. We spent a lot of time from Monday through Friday afternoon of that first week working in sections, combined sections and finally as a group learning to play the charts. We also spent a lot of time learning marching basics and some elemental drills. All of these sessions were coordinated by Coach, Jack, Randy West as the drum major, and the section leaders. Our plant - Mike Rabbinette - participated in all of these sessions, and frankly I only remember getting to know him vaguely during those first few days. Most of us were in the dorms with other band members with the exception of local guys who lived at home, and I suspect that Mike pretended to be living at home. Mike pretended to have some difficulties with marching basics and he was a little goofy during the week's activities.

Craig Stinson: That next summer [after my freshman year] I agreed to be the Freshman Plant ("Craig Freeman") for the incoming class. I was assigned to the squad of two of my best friends, Dave Terrell and Noe Marmolejo. I felt a little sorry for the other freshmen assigned to our squad, because by design our group was singled out for more work, and Dave and Noe worked the hell out of us. At night they would invite me over for a beer but I was usually too tired from the workout they had put us through to do anything but crash. As Freshman Plant I was more of a "mouth" than Morey... telling my freshman brothers that the Oklahoma marching band was better than the Mustang Band, that Terrell and Marmolejo weren't that good of players, stuff like that.

Ray Akin: I showed up the first night, acted like a jerk for a few minutes and ended up mouthing off to Bob [the freshman whip] a couple of times. I remember Bob in my face with a mouthful of tobacco juice and trying not to laugh and give it away. After a few minutes, I was hauled up the ramp and out the door. The whole gag lasted about 15 minutes. It still amazes me that almost 50 years later, people still remember it. It was fun

Randy West: After the scavenger hunt, we'd all come back inside [the band hall] and get into a circle. The freshman never got the hunt right. The plant would get called on, he'd screw it up. There'd be this back and forth and they'd get to arguing. The upperclassmen would dress him down, the plant would get mouthy. Then the upperclassmen threw him out.

Craig Stinson: One kid in our class worked hard but was just not very bright, constantly turning the wrong direction during the facing maneuvers. That got him singled out for extra "rehearsal" by the upperclassmen squad leaders. The night before the "sorting" I called my folks in Oklahoma and told them, "I don't know whether I will make the cut, but at least I know I'm better than that Silverman kid [the plant]." That night Silverman endured some extra verbal abuse and lunged at an upperclassman. It was all over for him.

Ray Akin: The plant would show up on the first night of Orientation. The whole thing took place in the first few minutes when the Freshman Whip was laying down the rules. The fake freshman would display a bad attitude about the proceedings, not cooperating, making remarks, and so on. He, of course, encountered the wrath of the Whip and all the upperclassmen. He was hauled up in front of the group for a confrontation with the Whip. After a few minutes, it was decided that he should leave and he was thrown out of the band hall.

Dan Perkins: James Robertson (one of my freshman brothers) remembers the upperclassmen getting very irate with "Fred Willet" just before Orientation was over. The upperclassmen literally carried Willet out of the band hall and told everyone that Fred Willet was kicked out of the band.

Bill Fancher: On Friday evening after our first introductions to Freshman Whip Rusty Meador and the entire army of upperclassmen, Mike Rabbinette got into his act of talking back to the Whip and disrespecting the weekend's schedule of training requirements. After a brief and heated exchange, Rusty informed Mike in colorful terms that he was not cut out for the band and several of the upperclassmen roughly grabbed Mike and hauled him up the ramp kicking and screaming. The rest of us were scared to death that we might also be judged unfit and tossed out.

Sharon Humble: [Our plant] had really long hair and a beard and he pretended he was one of us--in the band for the first time that whole week. Then on that final night when every upperclassman was paraded in front of our freshman group and we had to say their names, he was with them. But at first we didn't know it because earlier in the day, he had cut his hair short and shaved.

Bill Everitt: The plant would show up for future rehearsals and, as I recall, Drei would introduce him with his real name. At which time he was to be surrounded and "Hubba"d.

Mike Robinson: You got kicked out I believe on a Thursday night and I simply showed up the next day at practice and was "outed."

Ray Akin: The freshmen were let in on the gag the next day when the plant returned and was introduced as a band member.

Randy West: The plant would come back at the end of band camp with his real name.

Mike Robinson: Two more guys I worked with the second year were two of the nicest guys you would ever meet. When I started screwing up and getting "bawled out" for it by the upperclassmen, they would always come to me and offer words of encouragement and tell me to not feel bad. I just about went paranoid over those two, feeling bad that here I was trying to find out something bad about them and they were so nice and tried to help me cope. What two great guys.  I told my roommate just about every night that I sure felt bad about being some sort of spy. I was kind of dreading the day when they would find out who I really was and would not have blamed them for hating my guts the whole year. Well the next day after they found out who I was, I was in the band hall and went to the instrument room and there those two were together doing something. I decided to get it over with and walked in and instead of being mad, they started laughing and telling me how great I had been and how I sure had them fooled. Needless to say, I thought the world of them for sure all year.

Craig Stinson: Imagine my shock when the next morning he [our plant] was introduced to us as Upperclassman Morey Silverman. Possibly I worried about things I had said in his hearing over those two weeks, but the bigger deal was just the cleverness and forethought that had gone into that experience. Why would Morey endure two extra weeks in the August sun just to play this role? It probably took several months before I sorted out that a lot of the abuse I had felt from the upperclassmen was actually directed at Freeman, and not as much on the rest of us.

Stan Shipman: It was the 'freshman plant' in concert with the overall basic training program that galvanized the band into a group that was focused on mutual support and achievement.

Randy West: The plant also helped unify the freshman to rebel against the upperclassmen as a unit. Once they did that, they were ready to be in the Mustang Band. That ultimate rebellion involved the fountain: the freshmen, after they kneeled in the water as part of the ritual during band camp, had to throw the upperclassmen in. All through camp, others - like the Doll - were planting the seed of this rebellion. But the freshmen had to get the confidence together as a unit, to stand up to the upperclassmen and throw them in.

Craig Stinson: The idea was to help the freshman form an identity by pushing back at the things this mouthy "Craig Freeman" was saying about the Mustang Band and its upperclass leaders. In other words, you have to find a way to face big challenges together. It bonded the freshman class to one another, instilling fierce loyalty to one another and a deep pride in what we produced together.

Walter Virden (top photo), a Mustang Band alum from the 1960s, conducted the March 2 game (93-70 win over Tulsa).

Mike: We were [at SMU] late 1960's early 1970's.  "96 Guys and a Doll".  Always remember the enthusiasm.  Always interesting to see the numerous uniforms they wore.  Always looked very sharp and looked like they were having fun.

Bruce: My freshman year was 1966-67 - Jerry Levias' first year - when they went to the Cotton Bowl. Several games were won at the end, dramatically. One of my main memories of the games was how the Band kept the adrenalin flowing by playing Peruna softly while the team was in the huddle, like a race car idling its engine before the flag, and then blare it out when the ball was snapped and Mac White, Levias, or someone else did something dramatic. Then the whole thing created a driving rhythm,  play after play, while the team marched down the field. It was way cool. Bob Brandenberger was in our class and everyone liked him, as well as the other guys in the Band (in those days it was "99 Guys and a Doll").  We all knew a lot of them from living together in the dorms. We didn't tease them much about the beanies they had to wear at first because we could see how serious it was to them. I appreciated their commitment. I also always thought the Band represented our school extremely well, with its classy, sassy get up and routines. They still do.