When football season ends, Jay Watkins does not take a break. Instead, the director of the Gator Marching Band turns the page to the next football season and academic year.
Booking transportation and accommodation for away football games, prepping for the upcoming application cycle, sending back equipment and uniforms for service and making sure each song goes through the copyright process are just a few of the numerous tasks Watkins takes on in preparation for the 2026-27 school year. He has been with the Gator Marching Band since August 2006.
For the 64-year-old, who is also an associate professor at the UF’s School of Music, the semesters leading up to each football season are filled with countless hours of preparation as the staff puts together its 420-student band.
“We are one big dysfunctional family,” Watkins said. “That’s how we operate. Everybody loves each other, everybody understands the work everybody’s putting in, everybody’s going to get on everybody’s nerves at some point in time because we spend so much time together.”
Unlike professional athletics, Watkins said college sports are steeped in tradition, and the band plays a major role in creating the game-day atmosphere. But before band music echoes throughout Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturdays during the Fall, Watkins and his staff have to start from scratch. The first step: putting together student leaders.
Watkins said the band has around eight graduate students in the conducting or performance programs at UF. To be a graduate assistant, each applicant completes an online application and then proceeds to an interview. The students assist incoming band members with the music itself, helping them become better musicians. The band also hires professional staff for the drumline, color guard, visual ensemble and the Gatorettes.
Each band section has at least four student section leaders who are in contact with prospective students. Watkins said they are the most important people in the world.
“They’re the ones that do the bulk of the work in terms of helping new students become integrated into the university and the program,” he said.
Once the student leaders are set, the staff reviews auditions, which finish July 1, after applications opened in early February. Starting late June, Watkins said the band’s administrative staff reviewed over 600 applications from students who had a preliminary audition. Then, a select few returned for the next stage about three weeks later. During these auditions, students were evaluated on their performance of the pregame components specific to their instrument.
One of the major elements of preparation is band camp before the Fall semester. Five days before classes start, the band — including both returning and new students — meets for the first time during the school year. While the first day is focused on making sure each member has the proper uniform, housing, information and instruments, the remaining four days are when the band puts everything together.
But before the entire ensemble gathers in person in the Fall, the student leaders meet a few times to prepare for the upcoming season.
Student leaders come together for a leadership camp three days before the general band camp. They meet for a couple of hours daily to set goals for the semester and work on team-building, said Georgia Ross, a fifth-year mechanical engineering student and drum minor for the Gator Marching Band.
“That’s a really important part to prepare for band camp later that week,” the 22-year-old said.
They also host weekly Zoom meetings throughout the Summer in preparation for the leadership camp.
After the first day of the general band camp, students meet three times a day for the next three days for rehearsal. The first two are three-hour sessions in the morning and afternoon, followed by a two-and-a-half-hour evening rehearsal. The fifth day of the camp includes two rehearsal sessions before the band performs for the first time at the new student convocation at the O’Connell Center.
“It’s really chaotic but really exciting,” said Grant Bowman, a fifth-year aerospace engineering student and student conductor for the Gator Marching Band. “We’re very loud, we’re really excited. All the people in the ensemble are really passionate, and it’s really cool to just pick everyone’s mind and meet a whole bunch of people that love the same thing you do.”
While meeting new students and making friends is one thing student leaders enjoy about the band camp, Andrea Gamez-Heredia, a music education junior and student conductor for the band, said it’s challenging to teach the band’s specific marching style and how it wants to sound. It’s especially difficult when incoming students have learned various techniques in high school, she said, so the first couple of days of band camp focus on establishing these fundamentals.
When Gamez-Heredia first joined the band, she said it was the first time she had ever marched. She now looks forward to returning the favor by teaching this year’s incoming members.
“The people that were my leaders and my guiding lights meant a lot to me,” the 20-year-old said. “Making sure that I’m someone’s guiding light means a lot to me.”
Once classes start, the band meets at the UF Band Practice Field on Mondays from 6:15 p.m. to 8:10 p.m. and on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:05 p.m. to 6:05 p.m. If there is a game that week, the band meets once more on Friday from 4 p.m to 6 p.m. If the game is a home game, the band also meets Saturday at 7 a.m. before starting pregame festivities like Gatorwalk.
“From the outside perspective, a lot don’t realize how much work we truly put in,” said Kathryn Davis, a speech language pathology and music senior who is also a student conductor for the Gator Marching Band. “It truly is a grind, but in the best way possible.”
With more than two months before Florida’s season opener at home against Florida Atlantic on Sept. 5, the Gator Marching Band makes its final preparations before its members set foot on Steve Spurrier-Florida Field.
Contact Jeffrey Serber at Jserber@alligator.org. Follow him on X @JeffreySerber.
Jeffrey is a summer 2026 sports enterprise reporter and a third-year journalism sports & media major with a media, management and production minor. In his free time, he enjoys hanging out with friends and family, and rooting for the Miami sports teams
