About 15 minutes after the final buzzer went off Nov. 22, 2008 on Virginia football’s disappointing 13-3 loss to Clemson, something more amazing than the rest of the game day combined transpired on the field of Scott Stadium.
Matt Taskey, a charter member of the Cavalier Marching Band, climbed up on a podium in front of more than 200 of his band mates, bid them farewell and received the loudest and longest standing ovation anyone this side of Dave Matthews has received for being part of a band in Charlottesville.
The 2008 season — CMB’s and Taskey’s fifth — marked the final year the trumpet section leader would suit up in an orange, blue and white uniform, put that silly feather in a big blue hat and march a half-time show in front of 60,000 people.
Taskey, whose official CMB membership ended this month, was one of the most special and interesting members of a band filled with special and interesting people. There are a lot of things that separate him from the rest of the members.
For starters, Taskey graduated from James Madison in 2000 and hasn’t been a student in years. He pursued CMB in 2003 when he read an article that an old colleague of his, Bill Pease, was establishing a new marching band for the University of Virginia. Unsure whether Pease would remember him, Taskey contacted him. Pease enthusiastically extended the offer to let Taskey participate.
At first, Taskey didn’t plan to step out on the field with the band. He just wanted to lend some support. Even when Pease offered him the opportunity to march with the students, Taskey wasn’t sure what to do. Registration day of the first band camp, he sat in his car in the parking lot debating whether to walk in and sign up. Taskey said he almost turned around, headed back to 64 and drove home.
Fortunately for the band, Taskey made those steps from the car to the door of the hotel. Since that decision, his impact on the fledgling marching band — and on Virginia athletics and the University as a whole — has been enormous. The band’s impact on Taskey has been pretty big, too, he said.
“I’ve really enjoyed it,” Taskey said. “I love being on the ground floor of new things. You can build the foundation for it and see it growing.”
The band, however, is not Taskey’s sole commitment; he has a full-time job. He’s married and settled down, working on a career, which, right now, is helping run business matters at Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Harrisonburg, Va.
The effort of fitting band practices and the commutes into his 40-hour work week has been worth it.
“I love meeting new people,” Taskey said. “I love sharing what I know with people.”
As much as he’s gotten out of playing in the band, he’s given back even more. His intensity on the field has helped create a hard-working attitude for CMB that has become part of the band’s identity. He’s done it all in his years with the band: he’s performed solos, he’s run the biggest section in the band for four years and he’s helped develop the band’s process of communication between leadership and members.
In his second season in the CMB, Taskey became section leader. He was immediately recognized for being very good at the job; that very season, he won the band’s award for Best Section Leader.
The greatest contribution Taskey has made to the band in the past five years, though, comes from something deeper than running rehearsals. Every person he meets — and, by Pease’s estimate, Taskey has probably gotten to know more of his fellow members than any other CMB marcher to date — is introduced to someone who can keep the marching forms from crashing into each other on the field as well as a deeply empathic and loyal friend.
Tyler Romeo, a third year trumpet player in CMB, remembers back in 2006 when he had just graduated from high school and been admitted into U.Va. When he signed up for the marching band, Taskey gave him a call, introduced himself and immediately welcomed Romeo to the band.
“He always does a great job of making people feel welcome,” Romeo said.
Taskey is someone who will stick by you through your coldest winter. If a friend of his is fighting a battle and losing, Taskey is the one leading in reinforcements with horns blazing.
It’s not just the big gestures that he gets right, either. Taskey makes sure everyone thanks volunteers and bus drivers. He’ll always be the first to break awkwardness and tension with a silly icebreaker question, some of which he made famous across the band. For example: “If you were a kitchen utensil, what would you be and why?”
His habit of being a pillar of support can be traced back to when he was in high school and needed that support himself. When he was outed as a homosexual in 11th grade, his dad shunned him, his mom struggled to understand and he felt isolated from his classmates.
But Taskey said his sister was always there to comfort him and prevented him from breaking down. His junior year was a rough one, Taskey said, remembering that his parents sent him to a psychiatrist in an attempt to “fix” him. One day at school, he exploded at a fellow student who had been giving him a hard time.
Thanks in part to the support and understanding of his sister, he made it through to his senior year, when things calmed down and “everything became normal.” His friends at school stopped making a big deal about it, and his mother eventually grew to accept and embrace having a gay son.
Taskey says he’s now closer than ever to his sister and his mother. And though he says his relationship with his father remains tense at times, Taskey still keeps in touch. Taskey, along with his husband, Brandon Cline, even got lunch with Taskey’s father a few months ago.
The ability to push through tough times and adapt to any given situation is one of the skills Taskey brings with him to the band as a section leader. It’s traits like these that will help him as he moves on to the next phase of his life: starting a family of his own with Brandon.
As Taskey makes preparations to adopt a child with Brandon and his life takes a new direction, he has decided to stop marching for good. That doesn’t mean he’ll disappear from CMB altogether, though. He’s quick to assure the band members who applauded and thanked him back at the Clemson game in November, and again this January at the Band Prom, which was his final event as an official member of the CMB, that he’ll stick around for a while longer.
“I’ve got a feeling I’ll be involved for the rest of my life in some capacity,” Taskey said.
Dan Stalcup was a member of the Cavalier Marching Band from Aug. 2007 to Dec. 2008.
Read More
Virginia annihilated 41-14 in a must-win contest versus North Carolina
By Peter Kriebel | 3 hours agoJust about everything that could have gone wrong for Virginia football went wrong.
No. 24 women’s soccer not to be denied in late win over Clemson
By Sam Chun | 8 hours agoThe Cavaliers topped Clemson 1-0 in front of a packed out Klöckner Stadium.
Men’s soccer, totally discombobulated, capitulates early to No. 5 Pittsburgh
By Michael Liebermann | 10 hours agoPittsburgh set a program record for the quickest cluster of three goals.
