Frank Wickes walked off the Death Valley field Saturday with a final salute on his last game day under the lights of Tiger Stadium as LSU director of bands.Wickes’ 30-year tenure as director of bands will officially end when he retires in June 2010. “It was tough for me Saturday,” Wickes said. “You know you bite your lip a little bit, say ‘Thank you very much’ and go … During ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ you realize this is your last National Anthem and Alma Mater on the ladder.”Wickes grew up fostering a love for music and sports. The south New Jersey native said he had a successful stint as a basketball player, winning a state championship in high school and a earning a basketball scholarship to Delaware, where he received his first degree in music.”Because I was involved in sports as a kid and playing college basketball and being successful with it — if I had not been a band director, I would have been a coach,” Wickes said. “Those are my two great interests.”Wickes can spout the result of every bowl game LSU played during his 30 years at the University along with the disappointment of less successful stretches.”These two national championships we have had, for Tiger Band, nothing is better than that — especially with both of them in the Superdome,” Wickes said. “You talk about great memories, with the Tiger Band, you can’t forget stuff like that.”He also remembers what he called “peak experiences” with his concert band playing for prestigious music associations in front of other schools.Wickes’ retirement ends his 51-year stint as a music teacher.”You start to think back to the thousands and thousands of kids in band over the decades.” Wickes said. “They are middle-aged now, and they have kids in the band.”The head band director has been a stable position for 30 years, but the band surrounding it has seen a litany of expansions and accomplishments under Wickes.Often overshadowed by Tiger Band, the University’s concert bands have also evolved under Wickes’ direction. Wickes said the concert band played only in the spring when he arrived. Since then, he expanded the program to include three bands during the fall and spring semesters.The end of Wickes’ tenure presents questions for the future of Tiger Band.A search committee will fill Wickes’ position with an artistic director in charge of the top concert group with no authoritative connection to Tiger Band.This leaves Associate Director of Bands Linda Moorhouse — who has been at the University for 25 years — the choice to either continue as associate band director and control Tiger Band or make herself a candidate for head band director with no control of Tiger Band.Moorhouse did not return calls from The Daily Reveille by press time.”She is maybe one of the best if not the best marching band clinician for the college level in the country,” Wickes said. “That’s why Tiger Band is as good as it. If she is the person to take the Tiger Band, the Tiger Band will be in great shape as long as she is in charge.”But Wickes’ connection with the band will not end when his retirement becomes official in June.”I’ve pretty much given my whole life to the band program here,” Wickes said. “We are real band directors involved 100 percent of the time with LSU … I probably have more information about the band than anyone, and before I lose [my mind], I want to get some of that down somehow.”Wickes said he wants to begin compiling the history of the last 50 years of Tiger Band from scrapbooks he has assembled during the last 30 years along with attending LSU football games.”I’m a sports fan,” Wickes said. “I am going to stay here. Hopefully they will let me have a guest ticket where I can sit near the band and maybe come down the hill.”- – – -Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]