At the December 2022 meeting, the Board of Regents approved proceeding with the development of a new practice field for the Michigan Marching Band and to appoint the Robert A.M. Stern Architects as the architect for its design.
The new facility will be located one block north of the current Elbel Field, on the 6.5 acre site west of the Sports Coliseum owned by the university. It will provide the Michigan Marching Band with a significantly updated practice field that is designed to not only support enhanced performance, but also deliver a world-class learning environment for students.
Given that the practice field is an academic facility and will serve as an outdoor classroom, there will be a fence around the perimeter of the field to ensure both student safety and that critical educational assets are protected. However, the new field will be flanked by large parcels of green space to the north and south, which will be open and unfenced except for a safety fence that will run along the railroad tracks.
The new practice field will retain the “Elbel Field” name, which honors composer Louis Elbel who wrote Michigan’s famous fight song, The Victors, in 1898 as a music student at the university, The Victors was first played in public by John Philip Sousa’s band in May of 1899 in Ann Arbor. Sousa later called it the “best college march ever written.”