1/3/99

Ken Ozzello strikes up the band in Alabama

By Genna McLaughlin

TRIBUNE-REVIEW

That halftime feeling - that pumped-up, ready-for-anything tingle fed by the brassy, tap-your-feet, bob-your-head sounds coming from the kaleidoscope of colors on the field.

It's Ken Ozzello's product.

He drums it up in the sweltering heat of August, months before college football season reaches its feverish peak, on a regulation field built exclusively for 350 players who practice two hours daily for an eight-minute display.

Ozzello fine-tunes it again just hours before game time and unwraps it after the television stations have signed off for halftime reports. It's the signature of college football, as old and as steeped in tradition as the sport itself.

It's the pageantry of the marching band.

- At the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, on the top floor of the School of Music, Ken Ozzello inhabits the largest of four offices in a plush band suite with a receptionist.

It's there that the Jeannette native can be found - if he's not in a concert hall directing an ensemble, in a classroom teaching students or on the practice field with the university's "Million Dollar Band."

From that office with not one but two windows, Ozzello oversees a $1 million budget and manages a staff of 30 for one of the largest college marching bands in the country.

There, he is the Bill Cowher of bands.

Here, at his parents' home in Jeannette, he is a 39-year-old Jeannette High School graduate raving about the ability to look up local football scores on the Internet.

"That's Ken," said Carl Masciantonio, a friend and former teacher at Jeannette School District, who still calls Ozzello "kid." "He always had this quiet determination."

But the calm demeanor probably added to his success, Masciantonio said, because "he gets results from students."

Masciantonio saw the proof when Ozzello directed the Jeannette marching band for five years after he attended college at West Virginia University. Ozzello returned to WVU for his master's degree and from there accepted the assistant band director's position at Alabama in 1988.

He's been directing the band for three years and looks none the worse for wear a week before the biggest show of the season: the Music City Bowl game last Tuesday in Nashville.

"We didn't really get to practice," said Ozzello, without a hint of frustration. "We found out two weeks ago and finals were already wrapping up."

For the big game against Virginia Tech, the band played the last of three productions this season, a compilation of Alabama tunes. Final practice time came in Nashville before the game.

"If the team is having a good night, they play differently," said Ozzello. "If the team is behind at halftime, you have to win the crowd over."

- Ozzello loves football now as much as he did when he played the saxophone during Jeannette High School games in the '70s.

It's not a prerequisite for a director of bands at a school known for its successful football teams, just a bonus.

He rattles off some of the bowl games the University of Alabama has played in the last 10 years. The school has grabbed the national championship 12 times, one of them while Ozzello was there.

"1992. The Sugar Bowl," he said with a hint of pride. But it's more than pride he feels for the football team, it's a vested interest.

The athletic association funds the marching band. The more successful the teams, the bigger the budget for band scholarships, recruiting, staffing and production, he said.

In turn, the band adds something to the game.

"It wouldn't be the same without the band," he said. "It would just be another pro football game."

For many in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama games are as important as pro games.

"As we feel for the Steelers," Ozzello said, "they feel for the Crimson Tide."

Most games at the Bryant Denny Stadium are played in front of a full house of 84,000.

The band begins practicing in August on its own prescription-turf rehearsal field. Ozzello works weeks before the two-hour rehearsals begin, designing a drill and choosing music. Choreographers, directors and seamstresses are all part of the production. Some staff members do nothing but make travel arrangements for the massive group.

"It's a lot like a football team," said Ozzello. "Each section has its own coordinator."

During away games, all 30 staff members follow the 350-person band. That number includes state troopers who escort the band on game days.

But it isn't the glory that attracts Ozzello. It's the work.

"I'm happy there," he said. "I get to do a lot of different things and I like them all. It's a lot like coaching."

- It's game time.

Not the one that begins with a coin toss. The other one.

Ozzello's game, the one that begins after the players have returned to the locker rooms - when eight buses are unloaded, portable dressing rooms are readied for mid-show changes and Ozzello sits in the press box with a panoramic view and a portable tape recorder.

His team takes the field in a wave of crimson. For eight breathless minutes he watches them like a composer watching his own symphony. He analytically dissects their performance, studying each group separately, recording nips and tucks for next week's practice in his handy recorder.

It's his drill the 350 players and majorettes are marching, his choice of music they're pounding out.

When they finish with a flourish, the crowd cheers. Ozzello sighs with relief.

On the trip back to Tuscaloosa, the VCRs on the buses are running, playing tapes of the performance. Ozzello, his staff and the band are already beginning work for next week's game.