America's Pep Band (On Ice)

A Little History

The RPI Pep Band was founded in 1923 by A. Olin Niles, a local Troy conductor. He conducted the band for its first 50 years, retiring in 1973, after which students took on conducting duties. The band plays at football, hockey, and lacrosse games, as well as other events around campus (though hockey is our biggest thing). Sitting allll the way at the top of the Field House isn't terrible, but running down with the flag is downright scary sometimes (#BringBackTheStage). RPI won the NCAA D1 Hockey Championships in 1954 and 1985, but the glory days of the band were sometime in the late 90s-mid 00s from what I've read. Maybe this page is a roundabout way of connecting with those times.

Band Bureaucracy

The band has 3 executives and 3 associates at a time (1 conductor, 1 outreach manager, and 1 business manager). Up until very recently, managers/conductors would serve full year terms, but now you spend one semester as an associate and another semester as an executive. For some reason those morons (phrase used with love and respect) elected me as outreach manager, where I'd serve as Ass. Out. Man. in Spring '26 and Ex. Out. Man. in Fall '26. Still don't know why they did that.

The "On Ice" in the header is a reference to a promise made by many conductor campaigners in the 2000s to have the band play on the ice surface a-la Brown and U-North Dakota. It (unsurprisingly) never happened. Even if I ran for conductor someday I don't think I'd suggest it, as the ice has never been very kind to me.

Lore

If anyone who stumbles upon this would like to know more about the history and lore about the band, the Pep Wiki is a great source of information. They really just did shit back then (impromptu road trips, one band in two places, etc.). You could really get away with a lot.