The small seed that was unknowingly planted from me visiting the ISS room and study halls during Covid lay dormant for several years waiting for the perfect conditions to finally germinate into something. Thanks to the helpful team of administration, counselors, marketing director, and my awesome feeder middle school program at H.G. Hill, the choir program began to not only grow in both quantity, but also quality. With the addition of a new head football coach, all the conditions were set for something to happen.

I approached coach a year ago with the concept of forming an all Freshmen football choir. He liked the idea immediately and saw potential not only in the formation of young men, improved performance on the field, another touchpoint of a male figure providing affirmation, and giving the boys a safe space to earn their art credit. This would remove the temptation of being placed in a visual arts class where independence is vital to your success and with the frontal lobe of young boys not developed, failure is pretty much a sure thing. As a high school student, he sang in choir so he knows how much fun they boys have in the class. He developed into an even stronger advocate for GGC once the momentum was building.

Once I got the green light from the Coach and from the Executive Principal, I spoke to our Marketing Director and asked him to name the group. He came back with the name and a graphic. The Gridiron Glee Club was formed.

August 5-First day. Coach was in my class modeling how he wanted the boys to sit. No cell phone. No computer. Participating in the solfege hand signs. Let me repeat that. A high school varsity head coach was fully participating in the choir class on the first day. In addition to that, he added six more students to the roster that day.

August 6-Six Administration from the school visited me while I freestyle improvised lyrics about the students to get their attention on the round “Hey! Ho! Nobody home!” After school, I spoke on the phone to a teacher from another state to try and implement the GGC concept with their basketball team.

In addition to all of that attention, I learned that the entire freshmen academy was told to go and observe GGC and they would have their class covered by admin. I guess it is to show the potential in our young men in addition to how goofy the choir teacher can be.

August 7-One of our regular substitute teacher texts me that he overhears students in the freshmen classes saying that GGC is a fun class. The yearbook sponsor wanted to schedule a photoshoot. The conditioning coach asked me during an academy meeting about “what was going on in the choir room as that’s all he heard in the weight-room”.

August 8- The Director of Visual and Performing Arts for MNPS visited to witness our voice placement exercise. I play an instrumental beat from the song “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” by Jay-Z. It was in f-minor. I scatted simple three note patterns over the beat and had the class echo. (In la-based minor= la-mi-la, la-do-la, mi-la-mi) When they understood the activity then I approached individuals with the same call and response. I then divided them into three groups based on their ability to match my notes. Every single boy matched pitch. It may not have been the initial notes I sang, but I found a sweet spot where every boy could echo back what I sang. It further solidifies my theory that anyone that wants to sing can and will do so with consistent effort.

August-11th Today I had a male teacher that wanted to come in and sing with the group. He has a degree in music. He has now become a walking billboard for the class and encourages any students talking about the class to sign up.

August 13th- GGC sang a three part chord today. They have never seen conducting before. They are completely raw. They had no idea how to cutoff together. We tried three times to no avail. Then one of the students that has tested the boundaries before gave the most passionate “lock-in!, Let’s do this!” and then the football Pavlovian response kicked in with the rest of them and they all screamed. They were locked in. Bruce Lee once said that “the successful warrior is the average man with laser focus”. They had the laser focus. They got the cutoff!

As soon as that chord ended cleanly, a barrage of joy in which 29 teenage boys could not contain gave them the Holy Ghost power. One boy fell to the floor and started break-dancing. One boy started doing push-ups. Two boys jumped on their chairs with their hands in the air. Four students in the corner started doing a synchronized Kid ‘n Play dance. It had the energy of the Charlie Brown Peanuts cast dancing on stage after they had just chugged a 6 pack of Four Loko AND caught a football to score a touchdown to win the Super Bowl….in overtime…..at the stroke of Midnight on New Year’s Eve livestreamed to the whole world.

August 15-I have a lot of windows in this classroom. It allows me to see an entire courtyard and it allows the courtyard to see us. Due to the inconveniences of a growing school, students are allowed during lunch to hang in the courtyard. Unfortunately this occurs during GGC. There were 15 people from lunch mimicking what we were doing kinesthetically in class. Imagine like Thai Chi but with a beat. It was funny to look out and see that many people THAT AREN’T ENROLLED IN THE CLASS staying on beat with us with music they can’t hear. One of those individuals came in to ask if what she saw truly was a choir class full of boys. She was a Junior Girl. She’s joining next year.

At the end of today’s class, I was going to see if I could get just one student to volunteer to participate in choir council. (This would mean the student would attend three meetings throughout the entire year and contribute their opinion/representation from their choir) This council is comprised of student leaders from every choir to talk about the direction of the program. I was expecting to have to convince one student, I had eight volunteer. I had to table choosing those individuals until Monday. I did not have the headspace to try and navigate that and I didn’t want to rush it. It’s incredible that the energy and interest is there.

I’m going to try and blog more often with less material. Happy weekend.