Luis Perez started playing an instrument when he was 10 years old, and it was around the same time his dad took him to his first Washington Commanders game at RFK Stadium in D.C.
It was a preseason night game, and Perez recalled being starstruck when he walked in and saw all of the lights. He got excited when he noticed there was a marching band.
At the time, it didn’t strike Perez that he’d be able to combine his passion for music and sports. But he ultimately received a chance to join the Commanders marching band, and has been a part of it while also working as a teacher for nearly three decades.
“My kids get a kick out of it anytime they’re watching a game and they happen to pan across the band,” Perez said. “They’ll see me on Monday or Tuesday and say, ‘Hey, I saw you! I saw you!’ So that’s a whole lot of fun just to have that connection.”
Perez, who’s a band director at Holmes Middle School in Fairfax County, got involved with the Commanders marching band because a friend needed a trumpet player to sit in on rehearsal. He did it, inquired about how to get involved, auditioned, and has been a part of the band since 1997.
The band, one of few among NFL teams, rehearses once a week for about three hours whenever they have an upcoming performance. If it’s a game week, they rehearse on a Wednesday night, and before the season, they participate in a band camp, spending five days reading music that’ll be played throughout the season.
On game days, the band arrives at 8:30 a.m., has a rehearsal, and then spends time on the field to get logistics, like microphone levels, setup properly. Before the game starts, the marching band leads a parade to excite fans and performs a set near Legends Plaza outside Northwest Stadium.
Perez is one of 10 trumpet players — and one of 60 band members. This year, he said, has been an exceptionally fun season, given the team’s current success and playoff berth.
“I always have my burgundy and gold on, but to see so many other fans out there nowadays, because we’re doing so well as a team and an organization just being so successful, it’s a whole lot of fun to be able to do that,” Perez said.
Game days are usually 10-12 hours, Perez said. He said his family knows not to expect him home for most of the day when there are home games.
Being a teacher and organizing concerts and performances for the school and students is also a significant time commitment, and Perez said he practices alone almost daily when he has a performance approaching.
“It looks so easy when we’re doing it, because we’ve spent so many hours preparing and making sure that we’re doing it to the best of our ability,” Perez said.
A few of Perez’s former students are also part of the Commanders marching band, “which is amazing as well, because it helps me see the legacy of what it is that I’m doing,” he said.
That legacy includes 28 years in the marching band and 29 in the classroom.
While the marching band doesn’t travel to road games, Perez said anyone around D.C. on Saturday before the game may “see a bus full of marching band members having a good time, playing their instruments, trying to keep that hype up all around town.”
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