UGA’s Redcoat Marching Band gears up for trip to LA for national championship game

ATHENS, Ga. — The Georgia Bulldogs will fly to Los Angeles Friday for next week’s National Championship game.

If you think that’s a logistical challenge, the Redcoat Marching Band has twice as many members also heading to L.A.

Channel 2′s Richard Elliot was in Athens Wednesday with how the band spent the day loading up its gear.

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There are only a few symbols of UGA more recognizable than the arch in downtown Athens and the Redcoat Marching Band, all 468 of them.

Michael Garrido and Dallas Pellom are sousaphone players in the marching band.

On Wednesday, they were movers packing all the band’s gear, from harnesses to music stands to hundreds of bottles of water, into a big semitruck for the 2,300-mile trip to Los Angeles and the National Championship Game.

“It’s one thing to drive to Starkville or to Baton Rouge. It’s a whole other thing to drive to L.A. It’s a whole other level,” Garrido said.

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Emma Atkins and Kaleigh Crews are part of the prop crew. The team that makes sure the band members have everything they need when they perform. Loading trucks is nothing new to them.

“We’re usually forgotten, but we have a pretty big job. We move all of the auxiliary equipment around for them, and we get everything set up for them,” Atkins said.

“I can’t even get close to tell you how hard they work,” Redcoat Marching Band director Brett Bawcum said.

Elliot first met him while doing a story on the band at the 2017 Rose Bowl, which was also on the west coast.

He’s proud of his band and hopes Bulldog Nation is proud of them, too.

“They will do anything to make this Bulldog Nation proud, to make the state of Georgia proud, and they’re going to do everything they can in California to make sure that happens,” Bawcum said.

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