COLUMBUS, Ohio — Always remember your place. Know where you belong. Your mark. Your line. Your small piece that complements that big picture.
More than that, always remember why you do what you do.
“A lot of honor,” Sarah Ellis said. “A lot of tradition. They kind of go hand-in-hand. Kind of synchronous at times.”
Ellis is a part of the band. Yes, that band. The best damn band.
She’s the bass drum squad leader and plays third bass. She knows that feeling.
“It really doesn’t have a word to describe it,” she said. “It’s kind of the goosebumps and the tingling sensation you get on the back of your neck when you come down that ramp.”
She knows that indescribable moment at the intersection of honor and respect where the eyes of 100,000 Buckeye faithful remain unblinking, focused on you.
“Yes,” she said. “Adrenaline for sure.”
And when that beat drops she knows her place and every step is all that matters.
“It just brings the crowd a bunch of craziness,” she said. “They love it.”
Ellis started with the band in 2017. Then, in 2020, her place and responsibility called.
"Yep, I’m in the Air National Guard,” she said.
It started with a wrong call. The Air National Guard called, looking for another “Sarah,” and got Ellis, instead.
“And when they said I could serve and go to school…not only pay for it, but I could do it alongside it, not have to break apart my academics, it pertained to me and I just joined on the spot,” she said. “I didn’t even think a second thought about it.”
In 2020, Ellis served her first deployment spending four months in Bagram, Afghanistan, supporting crew chiefs while making sure equipment was repaired, maintained, and ready to go.
Ellis rejoined the bass line in 2021 and this year is the first year she’s marching as a married woman after marrying her husband, Anthony, in May.
“We are both crazy Buckeye fans, for sure,” she said.
She says what the military and marching band both share in common is a sense of community and purpose.
Now in her last year, she’ll be the first to tell you both on the field and off she’s always known her place.
“I’m gonna take this year and really go through Skull Session,” she said. “I’m gonna watch the team play. I’m gonna sit in the stands and enjoy every moment of it [and] enjoy every halftime performance, every run through the music and not take anything for granted.”