Viking Motivation By: Tanya Fooks Think for a moment and imagine the sun shining in your eyes as it slowly changes the color of your skin tone. Picture the grass swiftly rubbing against your sneakers leaving a trail of mud surrounding the shoelaces. It’s a Saturday afternoon and what do you see on the fields of South Brunswick High School? Tons of kids are waving their flags with full on force emphasizing every movement and playing their instruments while putting power into every breath. Instead of going to the mall with their friends or spending quality time with their families, they are spending hours and hours practicing for their first competition together. We all know that SBHS has participated in several competitions in the past but never with this exact group of people. We have ‘old people’ and ‘new people’ all working towards a common goal to get out on that field and give it their all. At about seven p.m. on the 23rd of September, The Viking Band will be packing up all their equipment and traveling to Piscataway, New Jersey to show everyone exactly what they have been working for from the beginning of the summer. They are a band of about one hundred and fifty people learning a routine that they know will be worth all their time and energy at the end. Recently, when Mr. Kraft gave a speech to the entire band while motivating them to ultimately try their hardest, he used a few words that may have cleared up a few things for the Viking Band members. “It’s not about winning first place but more about doing our best out there…” In only a few days they’ll be going into new territory with new attitudes guaranteeing success in all the right ways. With those simple words in mind, the band will keep in mind the point of competing and in doing so will make sure that every single person on and off the band knows the purpose of this trip.