By Anne Reynolds
Where were you in 2006? For George Mason University men’s basketball fans, it was a big year. It was the year the sports-watching nation saw the Patriots come from virtually nowhere to stride across the national stage of the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four. That unlikely run gave the Mason community an immense shot of pride and identity, and a new reason to swagger.
But after the madness of March came and went, taking the 2005-06 school year with it, another change came to George Mason, bringing with it identity, pride, and, yes, swagger. But this change was musical in nature.
Mason student Alex Interlandi cheers with the Green Machine during the 2014 Atlantic 10 Men’s Basketball Championship where the George Mason Patriots played Fordham at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Craig Bisacre.
When Mason’s director of athletic bands, Michael “Doc Nix” Nickens, arrived at the university a few months later, he found a pep band but not the musical powerhouse Green Machine that entertains basketball fans these days.
“When I showed up, there was a student-run group called the Mason Pep Band, and it was mostly made up of music majors. There may have been one or two non-majors in the group,” says Nickens.
Size was a problem. The earlier pep band was small, not much larger than the 30 members that NCAA regulations allow to play at basketball events. Maintaining the pep band’s numbers so close to the requirement meant that almost all the band’s members needed to be available for games.
One of Nickens’s first changes was to open up the membership. The music majors who had made up the majority of the pep band soon found themselves with students from all over the university, sometimes playing instruments not traditionally seen in sports arenas. Violins, oboes, DJs, singers, rappers, and even a harp now lend themselves to the Green Machine’s unique sound. “It definitely causes some practical challenges,” says Nickens, “but I’d rather just get up for those and solve them than exclude somebody who has passion or even just curiosity. Inclusive is really important, really important to me.”
Nickens estimates that as many as 60 to 70 percent of the Green Machine’s members are not College of Visual and Performing Arts majors. Nevertheless, they do not take their roles lightly. “Even though I am talking about non-majors, that doesn’t mean they aren’t committed musicians. They just haven’t enrolled in a [music] degree program, and some of our best performers in that group aren’t [working toward music] degree at all. But they very much identify themselves as musicians. Included in those ranks are students from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.”
The Green Machine with Doc Nix in action at the Patriot Center. Photo by Alexis Glenn.
Keandra Diamond, working toward a bachelor’s degree in psychology, finds that participating in the Green Machine provides a safe haven in her busy days of study. Having been a musician for nearly eight years before coming to Mason, Diamond appreciates the “enthusiasm, support, and talent” of her band mates. “I strongly believe that music is life,” she says, “and without the Green Machine, I would be out of my normal environment.”
“It empowers me,” says Diamond, “and having a student body that stands behind us makes it a truly spectacular experience.”
Sophomore criminology, law and society major Sarah Pineda finds that her involvement with the band has tied her to the entire university community in unexpected ways:
“I’ve had the opportunity to attend many school events like basketball games where the crowd can depend on us to spread school spirit through the music we play. Doc Nix and the rest of the band create such an infectious energy at every gig that it’s almost a privilege to be a part of the experience … It’s an honor to see how incoming and current students, as well as alumni, take pride in what we do, not only within the school but also beyond.”
History major Paul Bernfield sports his signature Dr. Seuss hat. Photo by Creative Services.
Pineda credits the Green Machine with giving her the chance to participate in important university events such as President Ángel Cabrera’s 2013 inauguration, the fall premiere open house for prospective students, the spring preview for admitted students, and winter graduation. Though she initially joined the group solely to continue with music while focusing on her studies, she now considers it her “second family.”
Senior history major Paul Bernfield found that his participation in the Green Machine has made him an identifiable part of the Mason experience for other people. “Everyone knows me as the drummer for the Green Machine,” he says. “I’ll see basketball players on campus, and they’ll recognize me, which is always a trip. I once did a gig for a friend who’s a high school director and when I was done, two parents came up to me and told me how great I was with the Green Machine. I always wear a Dr. Seuss hat [during performances] and a girl that I had just met saw my hat in my car and yelled excitedly, ‘You’re hat guy!’” All of this, he says, “made me realize that being a part of the Green Machine isn’t just playing for basketball games or for Mason events, it’s being a leader in a community and inspiring others.”
Carol Bentley, a criminology, law and society major with a minor in forensic science, appreciates how working with the band has allowed her to reclaim the enjoyment she’d had playing piccolo, an activity she had not been able to pursue in her earlier years at Mason. “I really only intended to join the Green Machine and see how that went last semester,” she says, “but I ended up also rushing the band service fraternity Kappa Kappa Psi. So with joining Green Machine and creating that family, I also got another family, my new brothers.
Along with the family (and local fame) that these students describe, Nickens feels their involvement benefits them in ways more directly related to their academic life. One of those benefits is learning to take on challenges.
“Sometimes we do things that are very difficult,” Nickens says. “I ask a lot of that band. The most difficult things we do, I can’t even believe we pull them off.” Though entry to the band is fairly accessible (while only those who play certain instruments must audition, most of the musicians are free to play if they have musical experience), Nickens’s musical standards are high, and the musical choices are ambitious.
“Sometimes that means I’ll tell you what we’re going to do and you [think that’s] impossible!’ And sometimes I’ll tell you what we’re about to do and you have no concept of what I’m even saying. And then all of a sudden you find yourself doing it. There’s a charge from both of those. I love destroying people’s doubt, and a lot of times I don’t even know if it’s possible myself, but we’ve had so much success that I think, ‘Of course we’re going to try.’”
One reason this works, stresses Nickens, is teamwork. “Even if I have lots of musicians who aren’t committed at the highest levels, they probably have someone sitting next to them that is. So any questions they might have can easily be answered, or they might not even have to ask, but they can just see it done in a way that they want to do it, and you’re going to be able to find your way to it, now that you can see with your own eyes.”
Nickens hopes to spread that profile even further with Mason’s entry into the Atlantic 10 conference. As he looked forward to the A10 Championships at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., in March, Nickens planned to bring the whole complement of the Green Machine.
Only 30 band members were allowed to perform during the tournament, but most of the band went to New York and played in other places around the area, including high schools in Long Island and Connecticut, where the band was invited by Mason alumni who teach there.
“And they’ve probably never, well, no one’s ever seen a group like us,” Nickens says.
This outreach reflects the fact that the Green Machine is not a pep band just for music majors or for basketball fans or even for all of the musicians who love to be a part of it.
“I start with the belief that the band belongs to the entire community, belongs to everybody,” says Nickens. “Everyone in the high schools, everyone in the seats, everyone who comes into contact with us, somehow it’s their band.”
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of Cornerstone, the magazine of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.