2026 Theses Doctoral

Garbage Cans and Marching Bands: A Mixed Methods Examination of College Marching Band Role, Function and Organizational Identity

Parrilla-Koester, Dylan Anthony

Entering the second quarter of the twenty-first century, intercollegiate athletics have recently undergone rapid and extreme policy change with little-to-no stability in sight. College marching and athletic bands operate within and across the terrain of college sport, providing a performance outlet for thousands of college students across the nation with unparalleled scale and scope. This mixed methods study investigated the role, function, and organizational identities of collegiate athletic bands within the changing landscape of American higher education and intercollegiate athletics.

Using a convergence design, the research unfolded in three phases: (1) a focus group of practicing college athletic band directors (N= 4) to identify emergent issues of governance, policy, and identity; (2) a national quantitative survey (N = 98) distributed to members of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) to measure the broad trends across institution types; and (3) a collective case study of four athletic and athletic band directors at schools competing at the highest levels of American college football.

Guided by Pratt and Foreman’s (2000) framework for managing multiple identity organizations, Cohen and March’s (1972) garbage can model of decision making, and Brand’s (2006) philosophical standard versus integrated view of college athletics, the study examined how athletic bands and their primary stakeholders–athletic band directors and athletic directors–interpret their professional roles and navigate competing institutional logics and priorities. Data revealed variance in perceptions of the athletic band’s role and function, diffuse reporting structures, policy opacity, administrative liminality, and frequent misalignment between symbolic visibility and structural authority. While most directors identified with the integrated view of athletic bands—seeing marching bands as central to institutional culture—they simultaneously described persistent marginality, financial precarity, and role confusion. Quantitative findings confirmed correlations between perceived stakeholder understanding and overall band director satisfaction.

Across cases, athletic bands emerged as hybrid organizations—educationally housed, operationally athletic, and socially grounded in student life–that are simultaneously central to campus identity yet often peripheral in funding and policy-related attention. Directors functioned as singleton specialists—faculty members with limited peer understanding—who act as policy mediators, managers, and educators. Themes of administrative liminality and policy improvisation underscored the field’s volatility amid sweeping changes in intercollegiate athletics legislation, conference realignment, and the high visibility that college athletics demand and afford. Furthermore, a cultural shift for students and staff emerged in which student athletes’ and musicians’ awareness of labor and capital become more pronounced and commercial interests begin to supersede academic interest.

Findings suggest that athletic bands exemplify the broader hybridity of the modern university: autonomous, symbolic, multidimensional, and perpetually negotiating the boundaries between art and sport, mission and market. Recommendations include the establishment of formal policy agreements such as MOUs between stakeholder units at universities, cross-campus coalitions to stabilize governance, and a national task force to develop baseline standards for athletic band support and policy inclusion. Together, these findings contribute to an emerging policy discourse on how hybrid educational-athletic-student life entities can sustain coherence, equity, and civic purpose within twenty-first century higher education.