MURFREESBORO, Tenn., April 10 -- Middle Tennessee State University issued the following news release:
The first thing most people notice on game day is the sound. It rises from the field in waves, steady and confident, long before the first snap. For generations of MTSU football fans, that sound has carried out a simple promise. The Band of Blue is here. The Blue Raider spirit is alive. And something memorable is about to happen.
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That promise began in 1957, when a young music educator named Joseph T. Smith arrived at what was then Middle Tennessee State College. Smith founded the Band of Blue that same year, building it from the ground up. He believed a band could be a point of pride for the campus,...