In the gym of Broken Arrow High School, just a few miles southeast of Tulsa, Okla., a plethora of students from color guards representing schools across the country could be found sleeping on the stands March 8. Many of them didn’t climb into bed until well past midnight, just to turn around and wake up at 4 a.m. for another day of competition.
All 21 members of the varsity EHS team, a full day’s competition away from becoming ranked ninth in the country, wake up well before their scheduled itinerary says they have to and turn on the hotel TV or music as members of the team filter in and out of the different rooms to get prepared. In one room, team members come to senior Reagan Siron asking for help getting their hair ready, and in another, junior Serena Caldarola returns from eating whatever hotel breakfast is available and gets to work on her makeup and hair for the next two hours.
Eventually, their scheduled call time comes, and the whole team heads out into the hotel lobby and climbs into the bus alongside all of the tarps, props, luggage, costumes and flag bags they packed for the competition.
When they arrive back at Broken Arrow High School for the second day of competition, they get the same paper wristbands you’d see at a theme park and drop their props in their designated hallway spot. That hallway spot is their home base for the competition, storing all the team’s day bags and extra flag bags.
Winter Guard International has a rule that teams can’t warm up until a designated time, but no guard ever follows it, and as such the Edwardsville team promptly changes into their costumes adorned with real lights strung through the legs and stretch for two songs – winter guard times their warmup on songs.
The lights on their legs – inspired by the glow of a firefly – are usually what everyone else remembers the most about their show. Sometimes at other competitions, other teams lean over railings, run up to them or yell at them in the hallways to tell the team how good they look.
Once they’re dressed, the team gathers in a circle on the floor while the staff play their show music so the team can run it through their heads. Their director, Brady, gives the team a pep talk with his mantra of how much the team deserves to be there, then they gather their equipment and head to the gym floor to warm up.
The walk to the gym floor is when the true communal aspect of winter guard starts to bleed through. Every guard, whether they’re heading on or off the floor, always makes sure to wish the other teams good luck and compliment their makeup, costumes or performance.
“There is an enormous amount of community in color guard that you don’t get in marching band,” Caldarola said. “When we see another guard, it is an almost instant connection and friendliness that I’ve never experienced elsewhere.”
Once the performance starts, the key to calming stressful nerves is remembering how much not just everyone standing alongside them, but also everyone in the stands, is there for support.
“It took me a while to figure out how to not freak out before a show and to be honest I still do, but I’ve learned that everybody in those stands is there to support you,” Siron said. “We all want to win but the winter guard community is so very supportive of one another, and I don’t think you will find that in any other sport.”
Whether the dirt beneath the gym floor is in Oklahoma or Edwardsville, the team maintains the same exact procedure throughout the performance to relax and remind themselves they’re going to do well.
“Half the battle of performing is your nerves,” Caldarola said. “We try to have a process and flow that is the same at all competitions to create a predictable environment that helps us maintain a good mindset and try to control adrenaline by not psyching ourselves out.”
In past years, once all the scores are tallied and EHS starts the seven-hour drive back from Oklahoma, they’re ranked around the middle of the pack. But this year, with a score of 85.94, they placed second only to Grain Valley from Missouri, who ranks second nationally. With such a high score, EHS vaulted up the national rankings, and WGI currently ranks them as the ninth best winter guard in the country and second best in the Midwest to Grain Valley.
“Being nationally ranked, especially being so high on those rankings, is absolutely incredible,” junior Leo Rulo said. “I really can’t describe the feeling other than so so grateful. Getting to this point has been both gratifying and a little stressful at times but nothing worth doing is easy.”
The next stop for EHS after Oklahoma is Dayton, Ohio, where the WGI World Championships are held from April 3-5. It’s the first time they’ve attended since 2022, meaning nobody on the team has ever competed there before. Worlds – often referred to by the team simply as “Dayton” – is a completely unique competition that can’t be compared to any of the regionals they’ve done so far.
“Dayton is like no other competition. It isn’t only about being at the most competitive competition in the world let alone country – which is of course tiring – but also pure color guard, which is something you won’t get anywhere else,” Caldarola said.
That “pure color guard” as Caldarola calls it, is a huge aspect of what makes Dayton so appealing, but at the same time unnerving. Performing in front of thousands of people from across the world simply “doesn’t feel real,” according to Siron.
It’s an atmosphere with almost 24/7 color guard, where if your team isn’t the one performing or preparing to perform, you’re in the stands eating, catching up on much needed sleep or watching all of the best guards in the country compete.
“I really love watching other shows and seeing what they can do; it inspires me a lot,” Siron said. “Each show tells a story, and those stories couldn’t be told without the performers. Each and every performer is so insanely talented it’s hard not to just want to scream at them and tell them how good they are.”