OSU marches on after band director's firing
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio State marching band is moving forward without its director; a day after he was fired they’re performing with the Columbus Symphony in what’s often considered the band’s unofficial season kickoff.
The university dismissed band director Jonathan Waters on Thursday after an investigation determined that he knew about and failed to stop a “sexualized” culture of rituals, including students being pressured to march in their underwear, sing lewd songs and perform sexually themed stunts that yielded often explicit nicknames.
Waters had led the 225-member band since 2012, succeeding 25-year veteran director Jon Woods. Waters’ halftime shows for what’s known to fans as “The Best Damn Band in the Land” were considered revolutionary.
Waters changed the shows by drawing them out on iPads instead of paper, directing marchers who morphed into the shapes of horses, superheroes and dinosaurs appearing to gallop, fly and tromp across the Buckeye football field.
Its technological advances landed the band in an Apple commercial in January. One performance in which the band takes the shape of a moonwalking Michael Jackson has more than 10 million views on YouTube.
Fledgling Ohio State President Michael Drake, on the job just three weeks, said he acted after being “profoundly disappointed and shocked” by the findings of a two-month investigation.
“This is 2014, and we respect our students as young adults,” Drake said. “We respect women, and we respect all the different people who work with us, we respect that diversity. We just had to make a square-wave change between this report, which was unacceptable, and the future, which we start today.”
The report began with a parent’s complaint of “objectionable traditions and customs” about which band members were sworn to secrecy.
They included “games” students were assigned to play to earn sexually themed nicknames: One female student had to pretend to have an orgasm while sitting on the lap of a fellow band member, her brother, and others pretended to be sex toys, prostitutes or body parts. Investigators found Waters was aware of some students’ nicknames and allegedly used them “when he was upset.”
