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sually, no one wants someone’s feet on their table, let alone anywhere near their chicken wings or pizza. That changes when the Syracuse University Marching Band enters Varsity Pizza on a college football Saturday for a cozy performance.
“If you do get a chance to go, you pretty much just blow your face off,” baritone horn player and alum Garrett Szczucki said. “Just let out any frustrations you had throughout the game, if you’re tired, maybe you’re hurting a little bit, you just let it all out there and get to eat some pizza afterwards.”
For over 40 years, some members of the marching band have taken over Varsity for the “banner flip” after Syracuse football wins at home. What was once just a marching band hangout spot has turned into a marching band tradition.
Instead of bleachers, the Shaw Quadrangle or the JMA Wireless Dome field, the marching band heads to the pizza joint after the game for a musical celebration. They turn tables into their own personal stage, breaking a barrier between the performers and the crowd.
“I’m wearing, like, filthy shoes. I’ve been walking all over Syracuse’s campus,” said Jess Strausser, SUNY ESF junior and trumpet player. “I didn’t think people would actually want me on their table.”
Strausser’s favorite part is the free pizza Varsity provides after the performance. Before they eat the slices, a senior band member gets up on a rickety, old ladder to flip over the banner of the team SU just beat. The banners of Syracuse football’s opponents hang around the restaurant.
Feature Twirler Abigail Veccia flipped the banner after this year’s first home game and season win against UConn in overtime. After the close game, sophomore and trumpet player Lillian Lavalette said the energy was high in the Dome and carried through to the Varsity performance. It was her first time going to Varsity since transferring from Onondaga Community College and starting at SU this fall.
After a football win, the marching band flips the banner of the team SU just beat. The Orange defeated the University of Maine in 2010 (left) and UConn in 2025 (right). Courtesy of Brian Harrison (1), Joe Zhao | Senior Staff Photographer (2)
“I was expecting the people who were sitting at the table to just ignore me, not really notice me,” Lavalette said. “But they were immediately so just incredibly friendly. They were asking, ‘Oh, what’s your name? How long have you been in the marching band?’ And they were cheering me on the entire time.”
Once the Orange win, Varsity starts to limit the number of customers into the restaurant. Patrons who didn’t make it in time peek through the windows, seeing what they miss.
“It feels so much like such an intimate performance, which you don’t really get in the Dome or on the Quad,”said Szczucki, class of 2021 undergraduate and class of 2022 graduate.
Sophomore and tenor saxophone player Nicole Vasilev described it as a “mob mentality,” with the marching band shouting, playing and standing on tables. She said it would’ve been fantastic if the whole band could fit into Varsity, but said the “roof would have come off.” Band alum Lindsay Zerfas graduated in 2018 and said, even without the whole band, it still felt like they were going to blow the roof off.
SU Marching Band members enjoy pizza outside Varsity after their post-game performance. The restaurants give them free slices after they perform. Joe Zhao | Senior Staff Photographer
Rookies are usually unaware of the tradition, having only heard rumblings of Varsity. When Zerfas was a freshman, she remembers running down Crouse Hill, out of breath. The older band members told her: “We go to Varsity.”
“I’m like, ‘What the hell is Varsity?’” Zerfas, who played the flute, said. “I didn’t even know that it was a restaurant. I didn’t know anything about it. I barely knew my way back to my dorm, let alone down the hill to Marshall Street.”
Strausser said during the UConn game, one of the rookies in her section forgot his trumpet since he didn’t know the details of the tradition. He mimicked the movements and played along, even borrowing others’ instruments.
SUNY ESF freshman and trombone player Derrick Spike went for the first time this year after Syracuse beat Colgate. He was aware they performed on tables, but wasn’t prepared for how cool it would be. He was nervous getting onto a table because a man had two large drinks and joked with him not to knock them over. As soon as they started their first horn section movements, the man picked up the drinks.
Brian Harrison, a clarinet player, graduated from SU in 2005. When he goes back to Varsity, he watches the crowd rather than the band. He’s played the fight song thousands of times himself and now likes to see the surprise on some people’s faces. Sometimes a nurse happens to be grabbing a slice of pizza or other customers are there coincidentally, not realizing it’s a game day, he said.
The SU Marching Band has been performing in Varsity Pizza after football wins since the 1980s. In 2014 (left) and 2008 (right), band members play their instruments atop the restaurant’s booths. Courtesy of Bird Library Special Collections Research Center
Despite the tradition being ingrained in the goings-on of the marching band, none of them know its origin. Class of 1986 alum and baritone horn player George Gross said a football player or the coach would flip the banner during the 80s and without the band playing any music. They aren’t sure exactly when the band transitioned to playing music.
Varsity and the band have been linked for a long time, Gross said. Gross and another alum, saxophone player and friend of his, Russell Ford, said anytime they went to Varsity as students, they knew another band member would be there.
“I spent so much time there that jokingly I have so many memories of closing the Varsity,” Ford said.
In the early 1980s, Varsity used to be somewhere students — like Ford and Gross — could drink, as the legal age was 18. They would stay there until 2 or 3 a.m. with all the band members, Gross said.
Gus Forsman has worked at Varsity for more than 40 years, making chicken wings. He remembers the band beginning to play in the mid to late 1980s and said people like Gross were some of the “original” members who would hang out at Varsity. Forsman has had a front seat to the band tradition since it began and now sees it as “just part of the day.”
Harrison described the current tradition as “almost legend.” None of them really know the specifics, and Szczucki said none of it is documented online. Still, looking back, Gross likes to see how it has changed.
“It’s just different times. It’s kind of really neat,” Gross said. “And it’s neat that you have to wait in line to get in to see that. People are peering through the windows.”
While the tradition is different, Varsity isn’t, Gross said. The furniture is the same. The banners are the same. Many of the employees, like Forsman, are the same.
Customers clutch their drinks to avoid spills as the marching band performs on their tables. The performances are rowdy, but well-loved. Joe Zhao | Senior Staff Photographer
Gross has season football tickets and usually goes to Varsity when he comes for a game, even if it’s before rather than to watch the band afterward. He always comes back to the joint, and he got to see his son, who graduated from SU in 2016, flip the banner himself.
As he returns to campus, Gross said he finds his way back to Varsity.
Szczucki was at last season’s game when Syracuse football upset then-No. 8 Miami. He remembered thinking the game was over when the Orange were down 21-0 in the first quarter. When they came back, Szczucki didn’t consider about storming the field like everyone else. Instead, he bounded down the hill with another marching band alum and grabbed a table at Varsity before a “herd” of people followed behind them.
“I was texting the couple people in my section around, ‘I’m like, you better get to Varsity. If you don’t go to Varsity now, I will disown you,’” Szczucki said.
As a senior band member stood on his table, Szczucki remembers sitting back and feeling a sense of awe. Strausser, who also got to partake in the tradition that day, said they went over the capacity that time, but no one really cared because everyone was so excited.
Vasilev is one of the few band members who knew of the tradition before experiencing it; she had friends in the band her freshman year before she joined as a sophomore. After the Miami upset game, she and her friends went to witness the performance: her first Varsity marching band experience. She said it was the loudest she ever heard the tradition. That Varsity experience is one of the reasons she joined the band, she said.
As customers enjoy their pizza slices and chicken wings, marching band members climb onto tables to perform. Some patrons peer in the windows if they weren’t able to get in before the performance. Joe Zhao | Senior Staff Photographer
“As a fangirl of the marching band, I love the marching band so much. I love their enthusiasm, discipline and etiquette,” Vasilev said. “Even though I was always an orchestra kid, it was incredibly inspiring. I loved seeing my friends standing on the tables. I recorded with them. I chanted ‘Go Orange.’”
Connecting with the community — friends or not — is one of the biggest parts of the banner-flipping tradition. Strausser said the crowd that makes it to Varsity consists of dedicated fans. Since it’s not super well-known, Veccia said it’s “insider knowledge.”
“One of my favorite things about it is you really get like the die-hard Syracuse fans because the people who aren’t really crazy die-hard Syracuse football fans have no idea that this is really a tradition,” Strausser said.
Veccia has had people ask her where she’s going and follow her all the way to Varsity. Trombone player Evan Oliveras — standing on a group’s table — spoke with a kid who was watching on FaceTime with one of them. He appreciated being a part of a longstanding tradition as it has changed, Oliveras said.
“Seeing (the tradition) change into something bigger is way more impactful for everybody, both the band and the community as a whole,” Oliveras said.
Now, some, like Harrison, flip their own banners every week. Hanging in both his law and at-home office are his own personal printed banners. His law office setup is complete with a SU-themed clock and Fran Brown poster. A photo of a packed Carrier Dome basketball game accompanies the paper banners in his home.
While Varsity is a huge part of SU’s gameday culture, Gross said he feels the band has always been the closest with the restaurant. There are band members who’re featured on Varsity’s walls and are people employees remember 40 years later.
“If you’re a band member, especially an older band member, it’s kind of like going home,” Gross said.
Published on October 16, 2025 at 2:49 am