Published: August 29, 2008 09:58 am            

PSHS flag girls get gig at Capital One Bowl

PRINCETON — When the 2008 college football season officially kicked off Aug. 28, 120 teams across the country began their quest to earn a coveted spot at one of the premier season-ending bowl games.

Five members of the Princeton Senior High School flag team have already earned theirs.

When Hilari Barton, Cortney Fields, Lindsey Flinchum, Kourtney Hughes, and Heather Webb attended a Marching Auxiliaries camp at Wake Forest University July 18-20, they each returned to Princeton with an invitation to perform during the halftime show of the Jan. 1, 2009 Capital One Bowl.

Marching Auxiliaries, a company based out of Plano, Texas, offers summer camps and regional and national competitions for marching auxiliary teams. The prominent company also offers special events, including the Capital One Halftime Extravaganza performance tour.

To earn a performance slot at the bowl game, camp attendees had to be selected by members of the M.A. staff, made up of some of the most accomplished professional auxiliary performers in the country. All five of the PSHS students who attended the camp achieved this feat.

According to PSHS flag team sponsor Bob Land, a limited number of participants from each of M.A.'s summer camps merit the prestigious honor of performing at the Capital One Bowl. Approximately 1,000 students nationwide, he says, were invited.

“They invite the best from each camp, and then it's up to the girls and their families whether they will attend or not,” he said. “It is really exciting for our girls to get invited. This is a first for us. It's a great opportunity for them.”

The Capital One Bowl is one of the most well-established and widely known college bowl games. Held at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla., the annual New Year's Day game is televised nationally on ABC.

Traditionally, the popular halftime show features one elite marching band performing with several individual members of auxiliary teams from across the country. In addition to the opportunity to be a part of the special performance, the PSHS team is looking forward to several other perks of the five-day tour.

“We get to spend a whole day in Disney World,” said Webb. “We get to spend New Year's Eve at Universal Orlando, and we get to have a pool party with all of the invitees that attend. And then we will perform at halftime of the bowl game on New Year's Day.”

Since earning the opportunity to participate in the tour, the team has been working on raising the required registration fees and traveling costs. For the five team members and Land to attend, they will need to raise approximately $10,000 by November.

“We have sent out letters to local businesses requesting donations, and we've had a yard sale, a bake sale, and we're doing doughnut sales,” said Webb. “As long as we raise the money, we are going to go on this trip.”

As the team members work toward making the chance to perform at the Capital One Bowl a reality, they are still coming down from their highly successful experience at the M.A. camp. In addition to the members earning individual invitations to the bowl game, the team as a whole won several impressive camp awards. The team was named the Grand Champion of Flags for their performance of a routine learned during the camp. Their home routine also earned them a first place award, and the team won first place in the “Fun Night” competition. Individually, Hughes and Webb took first and second place, respectively, in the solo competition. Fields brought home a Rising Star ribbon, and all five team members merited superior ribbons during their individual evaluations.

“I am very proud of their presentation at the camp,” said PSHS band director Julie Kade. “I think they were so successful because of their experience…they have been doing this since middle school.”

According to Land, trophies and ribbons were not all his girls brought home from the established camp.

“It gave them confidence,” he said. “They know they were capable. And, they got to see what the real thing is all about. Watching the camp instructors, they saw the degree of difficulty that professionalism takes. They watched the intensity and saw how much dedication and hard work it really takes.”

Such lessons have stuck with them, but the PSHS team members' most prized camp rewards remain to be their invitations to the Capital One Bowl halftime show. And Land says the team's cumulative success was made all the sweeter by the determined efforts shown by one member in particular.

“Cortney Fields is the ‘newbie’ on the team, and she worked extremely hard for her invitation,” he said. “The other four earned theirs fairly early, so she really wanted to go with them. She put in a lot of extra time and earned her invitation during the very last routine.”

Not all of the select performers invited to take part in the bowl game will raise the funds to attend, but Land seems confident that his team will be on the Citrus Bowl field New Year's Day.

“When they got invited, they looked at me and said, ‘We're going,’” he said. “They're really working hard, and if they can keep on pace and get the community spirit involved, I think they will do it.”

Private tax-deductible donations toward the team's trip may be sent to the high school, attention to PSHS Flags.

— Contact CharLy Markwart at cmarkwart@ptonline.net.

        

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