Under the Friday night lights,the sway of the flags showed the marching band taking the field and the performance of ‘Night Fever’ commencing. Delyla Demers (10) joined the colour guard in 8th grade and is now in her third year. She was the youngest in the group and the last 8th grader they allowed to join the colour guard.
“It just happened out of the blue, I got a call one day from my mom asking if I wanted to do it and I’m like, ‘sure, yeah, I’ll do it,’” Demers said.
Demers also said the best reason she can give about joining is that she was bored and knew one of the coaches. She barely remembers her first year of guard other than the circle of skipping and doom, and the confusing late night extra practices.
“I really enjoy the team that is here and all of the fun we have when it comes to times like comp where we all just hang out on the bus,” Demers said.
Demers mentioned that equipment that is typically used in colour guard, or with their group, are the 6ft flags, rifle, swing flags, and sometimes saber. Dance is now a heavily incorporated part now.
“Primarily, I use flag and rifle,” Demers said.
Colour guard can be an injury heavy sport, people can be out for weeks or the entire season when they get a concussion from a rifle or a flag.
“I have weaknesses when it comes to throwing really high or when it comes to getting multiple rotations in my tosses. My strengths, I do pretty well with difficult tosses, I can’t get them that high, but I can definitely do them pretty well,” Demers said.
Whenever she makes mistakes, she says she tries to remember where they are in the work to quickly recover, or pause to get back into where they are.
“[We stay in sync by] counting,” Demers said.
Counting is a valuable aid when it comes to staying in sync with the rest of the team.
“Preparing usually involved a stretch circle where we talked about almost everything and when times were tense or we all felt nervous. We did positivity where we would say something positive about ourselves then say something good about the person next to us. We would go over work that would be confusing, or something we all needed to work on, and run through the show work,” Demers said.
As long as she’s been in guard, she said they have had a tradition where they would circle up before performing, put their foot in the middle, get a piece of candy from the coach, and cross their hands. They would talk then turn out saying something.
“I will always remember the Heritage competition from this year when it comes to our third show. That whole work we did, we learned that week, and I thought we did amazing and it looked really good. I was so happy when we finished,” Demers said.
What began as a spur-of-the-moment decision has become a defining part of Demers’ high school experience. With three years under her belt and countless memories made, she continues to bring energy, teamwork, and dedication to every performance. With the football season now over, colour guard momentarily sets their flags to the side. Delyla Demers is an extraordinary member of the guard and will have a memorable time throughout high school.
