Thanks to Hurricane Ike, the gridiron will belong to the high-steppers of Shaw University during the so-called "fifth quarter" of today's Capital City Football Classic featuring two historically black colleges at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento.

The storm's onset has forced the Texas Southern University band to pull out of the event, leaving Shaw's Platinum Sound Marching Band alone in the spotlight.

That puts some pressure on Shaw since fans of black college football relish the unique musical and physical pyrotechnics as much as the athletic competition.

"The marching style that Shaw does is a very unique high-stepping style," said Charles V. Brown, band director and professor of music for Shaw University. "This is done by raising the legs up to 90 degrees high and kind of strutting like a horse."

Brown has been instrumental in building the band's reputation as premier high-steppers, serving as director for the past 34 years and ushering in the recent incarnation of the band program for the past eight.

High-stepping marching bands are popular in the South – and on college campuses – but their synchronized drumming and crisp choreography did not receive much mainstream attention until 2002 when the film "Drumline" was released. It focused on a drummer in an innovative Southern marching band.

The battle of the bands event is used as a key recruiting tool for black colleges, said Frank Withrow, statewide coordinator for United Black Student Unions of California.

"It is a real draw in this state since you have a lot of kids who have had their music programs taken out of their public schools," Withrow said. "Joining one of these marching bands gives them the option to get back into music."

Shaw's Platinum Sound Marching Band will perform a 15-minute set at halftime – known by band members as the fifth quarter – and will also perform at the end of the football game, as is typical with high-stepping marching bands.

"They'll perform after the game until as long as they feel they are still entertaining," said Kirk Reynolds, spokesman for the United College Action Network, one of the hosts of the event, which is intended to use football and entertainment to promote literacy, education and cultural awareness.

Shaw University, which has a campus in downtown Raleigh, N.C., was founded in 1865 and is the first historically black college in the South.

Brown said he recruits junior and senior high school students who have the promise to be above-average instrumentalists and athletes. The time commitment to be a member of such a band equals, and sometime surpasses, the demands for the football team.

Withrow has used the battle of the bands event as a recruiting tool in the Elk Grove and Natomas School districts, as well as schools in Bakersfield.

By the time Shaw's band hits the field this afternoon, Withrow said, he will have sold the charms of attending a black college and participating in its marching band to more than 3,000 students.

To whip Shaw's band members into shape, Brown has recruits attend band camp.

"It's just like a boot camp," he said. "We wake them up at six in the morning, and we have them going until nine at night. This is solely for the conditioning of the student."

He said the repertoire is mainly a mix of marching band music, Top 40, and "old school" music form the 1960s and ' 70s." With this repertoire it's not unusual to have a number by Mary K. Blige followed by an intense James Brown tune.

High-stepping marching bands have always been keen on including popular music in their shows. That tradition became a hallmark of the bands in the late 1960s, and that tradition continues today with hip-hop music bleeding into the repertoire.

Call Edward Ortiz at (916) 321-1071.