AMBOY – During the last two Februarys, the first round of the seventh grade boys basketball IESA Class 4A State Tournaments have featured a few similarities.
There were players and coaches forming eight teams vying for a spot in the semifinals.
There were fans.
There were trophies.
There was the Amboy Junior High School pep band.
“Playing in the last two tournaments has been great. Last year was nerve racking because we didn’t know what we were doing,” said AJHS Band Director Avery Kerly. “We went to Bloomington, which is a two-hour drive for us. Going down last year, there were a lot of nerves, we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, and we didn’t know how things were going to be when we got down there. This year was much easier because as an organizer I knew what to expect. I knew how to do everything that we did last year. We were at the same school, so we even knew where to park the bus.
“This year’s band has a little more tenacity than last year. Last year, I had some really, really strong players but when you do the semifinals for a state tournament, you’re playing four games. It’s a long, long day. We started playing at 10 a.m. and we didn’t get out of there until 3:30 p.m. You’re playing a lot and the kids got tired last year. When we got to the fourth game, we were still playing well, but you could tell some of them were falling asleep in their seats.
“This year, they powered through to the end of the fourth game. It was smooth.”
Kerly, who graduated from Vienna High School and obtained a bachelor’s degree in music education from Southern Illinois University before teaching and directing music at AJHS for the last six years, is excited his band members received the opportunity two years in a row.
Some of the up-and-coming junior high band members and a few of the remaining stalwarts are impatiently waiting for a return trip to the tournament.
However, it’s not handed to them.
“I had a college professor call it, ‘The caring feeding of the monster.’ Anytime you try something new as a band director and it goes well, that’s expected. There is pressure, but it’s a good way to motivate the kids. Coming into this year, I told them I was planning on auditioning for the IESA pep band again. I told them I didn’t know if we were going to make it and there was no guarantee, and we’d have to audition just like we did last year.
“My students really took it as a challenge because my seventh and eighth graders really wanted to go it again. My sixth graders were bummed they didn’t get to go last year. They had a fire lit under them and were ready to work hard to get into the IESA tournament.
“My fifth graders are already super excited for next year. They’ve asked numerous times, ‘Are we going to get to go next year?’ or ‘Is that something we can do?’ It’s not really up to me. It’s up to them to work hard. I teach them how to play and how to read music, but at the end of the day, it’s not me up there making the music.
“I’m the guy standing up there waiving my arms trying to get everyone at the same place at the same time. They’re the ones who put in the hard work and make the music. If they want in, they do it themselves, and I just help along the way.”
When Kerly took on the Amboy program six years ago, he had 28 kids.
Now, the cellist, euphonium player, and guitarist (Kerly said playing different instruments is his strong suit) has 44 band members. He had 12 more at this year’s IESA tournament compared to a February ago.
“I think junior high is the most fun grade level to teach music at. Elementary is fun, too, but it’s a lot of work for not a lot of results,” Kerly said. “By the time they get to fifth or sixth grade, they’re getting to the age where you can teach them more things, they can follow more complex instructions, and they’re officially ‘getting into it.’ When they’re getting into it for the first time, it makes me remember all of my first times since I went through the school band.
‘It’s cool getting to work with these kids and seeing the little ah-ha moments when they finally get it.”
