Aztec for Life Prize Winner Profile
Bryan Ransom (’93), San Diego, CA
Bryan Ransom (’93) is about as high-profile as it gets at SDSU, performing before thousands of Aztec fans at football and men’s basketball games. As the university’s director of athletic bands, he oversees the Marching Aztecs, Pep Band, Varsity Band, Winter Guard, Drumline and all of the SDSU instrumental ensembles.
Bryan Ransom ('93) directs the Marching Aztecs during a performance at Qualcomm Stadium.
As the latest winner of the Aztec for Life Monthly Prize Giveaway, Ransom receives a Fitbit Flex Wireless activity and sleep tracker wristband provided by SDSU alumni partner Liberty Mutual. The device will certainly be tested if he wears it while conducting the Marching Aztecs this fall or performing as a drummer, which is one of his favorite activities.
“There’s something in you to be a percussionist,” he says. “You have a sense of time. You have a sense of rhythm.”
“MUSIC IS EVERYTHING”
Ransom comes from a musical family. Both of his parents had intended to become music teachers.
“I am the only one who pursued it career-wise, but my family is all still very musically inclined and they just love music,” he says. “If I didn't have music in my life I would cease to exist. It's everything to me.”
The music instructor puts a lot into both teaching and performing. He begins working on Marching Aztecs halftime shows in June or July in order to perfect them by game days.
“I'll start thinking of ideas of show themes or I'll hear a tune that I think will make sense on the field and then I'll go through the process of either finding someone to arrange it or doing some arranging myself,” he says. “But I have basically a framework before the season starts of what each show is going to entail.”
A CRAZY, LONG-HAIRED DRUMMER
Super Bowl XLII: Ransom produces Super Bowl pregame, halftime and postgame shows.
Ransom’s heart has always been with the Marching Aztecs, the band where he met his wife, Christina, when both were SDSU students. “She's a piccolo player and I was a crazy long-haired drummer,” he remembers.
But Ransom also has worked for many years as entertainment coordinator for the San Diego Chargers. Additionally, he produces Super Bowl pregame, halftime, and postgame shows, Major League Baseball and International Tennis Federation events, and various NCAA Championships.
Still, he’s an alumni lifetime member and an Aztec through and through. Known and appreciated for his campus leadership and collaborative spirit, he was presented a 2013 Monty Award for distinguished university service.
And, he says, there’s no place he’d rather be than SDSU. “I bleed red and black and having the opportunity to go to games and get paid to go to games and to be working here,” he says, “that excites me.”
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