Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
Of all the leaders on the field during LSU game days, Catherine Mansfield is probably the least banged up at this point in the season. “No injuries yet,” she reports. “Sometimes a little bit of a sore shoulder. But other than that, I’m on the top of my game.” Mansfield is the LSU Tiger Marching Band’s drum major. During this turbulent, challenging LSU football season, she and the 325 instrumentalists, Golden Girls and Colorguard members she leads have done their best to fire up fans. Along the way, she's made history. In the Tiger Band's entire 132 years, she is only its fourth female drum major. “I feel a bit of that pressure, but a lot of it is self-imposed,” said Mansfield, 21. “People are going to watch me closer but are rooting me on more. They see that the drum major is a little different, but they’re all for it, for the most part. ... It’s been a very positive overall experience.” Learning to 'march a dot' Growing up in Metairie, Mansfield learned piano at age 5, then flute. She chose St. Mary’s Dominican High School, in part because it is one of the only all-girl schools in the New Orleans area with a marching band. By her senior year, she was Dominican’s co-drum major. “I’m really glad I went there,” she said. “It’s what enabled me to continue my music journey.” Other than Mardi Gras parades, Dominican’s band mostly performs in concert settings or at volleyball and basketball games. After earning a spot in the LSU Tiger Marching Band as a freshman, Mansfield had to learn how to “march a dot” — play music while marching in a pattern on the football field. “It was a whole new world. Most of my peers had come from co-ed public high schools in Louisiana, and they’d been doing that for years. It was a lot to catch up with, a lot of skills to learn.” Her sophomore year, she was named co-leader of the Tiger Band's piccolo section. Ahead of her junior year, she tried out for drum major, but ended up as the piccolo section's solo leader. She resolved to audition for drum major again her senior year. The Golden Band From Tigerland named its first female drum major, Kristie Smith, in 1999. Mindy Hebert Aguillard followed in 2000, then Mary Bahlinger Motes in 2014. That scant track record didn’t discourage Mansfield. “Coming from a place like Dominican, where it’s very much by women for women, I was used to an environment that’s dedicated to uplifting girls. I was used to women in leadership. Coming to LSU… I didn’t have any reason to think I couldn’t do it.” The weeklong band audition assessed both technical and subjective skills. “It’s a holistic analysis of you as a member of the band and as a leader,” Mansfield said. “They’re looking at what your peers think of you.” Being one of only two female candidates auditioning for the 2025-26 drum major “could feel isolating. But I had a lot of support from within the band, and from my family and friends. ” Feeding off fan energy The adrenaline is “pretty crazy” when she leads the band down Victory Hill through a game day gauntlet of cheering fans to Tiger Stadium. “It’s honestly hard to not just black out and forget all of it.” During the excitement, she must maintain military-like precision. “Everything is calculated down to the second. I’m trying to make sure I’m going the right speed so we get to the bottom of the hill at the right time, and the team can start walking down at the right time. It’s a big production.” The musicians are “at attention” on the walk, not reacting to the crowd. “We’re not supposed to be looking (to the side), waving or smiling at family. You have to look straight ahead and be all business.” The game itself involves “a lot of moving pieces." During timeouts and other pauses, Mansfield mostly selects what the band plays. A classic rock fan, she'd love to insert Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" into the playlist. She has to be “very in-tune to what’s happening on the field and the energy in the stadium. That dictates what we’re going to play in that moment. My friends will yell suggestions from their spot in the stands, and the directors will give input. But mostly it’s me controlling what the band’s playing. "I don’t have a lot of time to turn my brain off. It’s mentally exhausting, but fun and exciting, because we sound good.” She says it's “definitely easier for us to feed off the energy from the crowd when it’s a bigger game. It’s not as easy to be hyped when half the stadium has left already in the fourth quarter.” But when the Tiger Stadium lights sync up with the marching band's music and the student section is rocking, “it’s really fun to be at the helm of that energy.” A shared camaraderie During the halftime show, Mansfield is the equivalent of an orchestra’s conductor, signaling tempo and meter changes. The musicians who can’t see her take cues from the drumline. “It’s basically me and the drums trying to lock in with each other so no one gets lost and the sound doesn’t tear. That can happen if the wind players are going at a different speed than the drums. We have to make sure everyone knows how fast we’re going.” The Tiger Band logs 90-minute rehearsals Tuesdays through Fridays during football season. For home games, they rehearse again on game days. The entire band typically travels to one away game per season; this year, it was Ole Miss. For other away games, including Saturday’s matchup against the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, only 100 musicians make the trip. “It can be discouraging when we bus all the way to an opposing stadium and the outcome (of the game) isn’t so great,” Mansfield said. “But at the end of the day, we always have a good time performing, and we’re there for each other. “We’re all there because of a shared interest. We all went through the same thing to be in the group.”
