For 33 years, K-State’s legendary director of bands delivered high-energy performances and heartfelt life lessons. Now Frank Tracz is stepping down.
If you’ve bopped to the Wabash Cannonball during the past three decades, you already know Frank Tracz.
But even if you’ve never met the guy, you understand his iconic role in K-State culture.
The march to greatness
He started small. In the band’s first pregame show under his direction, some marchers missed their on-field marks. So instead of spelling out a giant “K-State,” the band’s formation looked more like “K-Etate.” Let’s just say 1993 was a building year.
But it was the same year the football team won the Copper Bowl, and Tracz’s program launched a turnaround of its own. By the next year, the band’s size doubled. Then it tripled. And today it’s 400+ members strong, bubbling with pep and loud as hell.
The Pride of Wildcat Land won the John Philip Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Trophy — the Heisman trophy of marching bands — in 2015. And Tracz was a driving force behind the campaign to construct the new band hall.
Lessons for life
During the rehearsal when he announced his retirement, he was in classic Tracz mode. With his headset mic cranked high enough to be heard over the drumline’s roar, he doled out critiques to improve marching precision.
He sprinkled in some folksy life lessons. And then he broke the news: He was ready to turn the keys over to somebody else — but with sky-high expectations as part of the deal.
“I’ll make them understand that what I expect is that they will leave this place better than they found it,” he said. “Because I have left it better than I found it.”
