Sports are popular at our school and for good reason: they’re fun, help you get exercise, and help you build teamwork and friendships. However, many sports receive much more recognition than others, and some fun activities are overlooked that students can take part in. One of these sports is color guard, and trust me, there’s a lot to like.

Firstly, let me establish my bias. As a three-year member of our school’s color guard and the current captain, I have many fond memories and a great love of guard. Yet at the same time, I think this also puts me in a unique position to talk about my personal experience with color guard.

I know that before I joined, I had no clue as to what color guard even was. That’s because oftentimes we are grouped in with the marching band.

Color guard is a group of students who perform routines to music using a number of different pieces of equipment. Most people who do know of guard, know us as “those people who throw flags.” While this is a very common piece of equipment used in performances, other common pieces of equipment include sabers and rifles (obviously not real ones).

For the first semester of the year, we perform with the marching band, often at football games. However, for the second semester, we perform our own show, disconnected from the marching band, and we compete with guards from other schools.

With logistics aside, I’d like to explain why I joined guard and why you should too. To be honest, I did what many people do, and joined because my friend was the captain, and I was free one afternoon to try out. That’s when I got roped into one of the best experiences of my high school career.

I had been in other sports before like soccer and basketball, but being an introvert, it was hard for me to feel like I was really a part of the team.

Guard is nothing like that. The team was friendly and open to newcomers. Part of this is because you quite literally need zero experience to join. Nobody expects you to be any good at first, as long as you put in the time and effort.

In my personal opinion, guard is not nearly as hard as it looks. We always like to say that your first toss is going to be your hardest. Once you get the hang of it, pretty much anything seems possible. The feeling of performing for guard and learning amazing tricks really is awesome once you have the basics down–not to mention showing off in front of people is quite the perk.

Tryouts for color guard for next year are going to be held Friday, May 20, and anybody can try out. I hope to see you there!