Formed in 1907, just two years after the completion of Academic Hall, the Southeast Marching Band is one of the oldest traditions on campus. Officially named the “Golden Eagles” in 1957 after a steamboat that traveled the Mississippi River, the band has marched to its own drumming across football fields, parade routes, and castle esplanades.
Since its first halftime performance at a home football game nearly one hundred years ago in 1926, the Golden Eagles have indeed marched far and wide.
In 1971 they were featured at Super Bowl V between the Dallas Cowboys and Baltimore Colts. In front of 80,000 fans at Miami, Florida’s Orange Bowl, and a television audience of nearly fifty million, the Golden Eagles performed a pre-game show, the National Anthem, and a marching halftime routine. This performance, which thrust the 160-member band into the national spotlight, was the culmination of an intense and ambitious practice schedule with rehearsals spanning five solid months from the previous September to January.
Internationally, the band participated in the majestic Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Scotland twice, in 1999 and 2008.
While the band relocated to the River Campus in 2017, their distinctive sound still echoes through the university and surrounding community. The Golden Eagles play “all home football games, on-campus spirit rallies, parades, and at selected high school marching band festivals” – a colorful and storied Southeast tradition of musical precision in motion.
