Norfolk State may have the best marching band in America. But the Spartan Legion is about so much more.

Norfolk — The door is open to William Beathea’s office. Usually is.

He’s juggling paperwork, phone calls and multiple conversations. Usually is.

Students poke their heads in, waved across the threshold with a “come on” flutter of his fingers. This one is searching for a set of keys. That one has a question about the new uniforms. Another is worried about a gap in his financial aid.

“Don’t worry,” Beathea tells him. “When I met your mother, I told her I was going to take care of you and I meant it. I’ll take care of it this afternoon.”

Marching band is about much more than music.

Beathea is director of Norfolk State University’s 225-member Spartan Legion — a high-stepping band with a rep for putting on a show, drawing fans to the stadium no matter how the football team is faring.

But every song and dizzying drill takes a back seat to what’s really going on here.

“Character-building skills, leadership, communication, discipline, work ethic, problem solving — we start there,” says Mr. B, as the students call him. “Once we get that going, and teach these kids to care about each other, the band part becomes rather easy.”

It’s an ambitious playbook, begun anew every fall, unfolding at a university that’s had plenty of challenges of its own.

NSU has yet to fully recover after administrative problems led to a temporary accrediting probation in 2014, which dropped enrollment from about 7,000 students to around 5,000, resulting in some serious budget cuts.

Google “top HBCU bands” though – Historically Black Colleges and Universities – and find NSU steadily on the list, right there with legends like the Sunshine State’s Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman, Louisiana’s Grambling State and Mississippi’s Jackson State.

The Spartan Legion “can hold its own in any part of the country,” says Don Roberts, an executive consultant for an ESPN committee that ranks HBCU bands.

Last season, NSU hit No. 1 in the committee’s Division 1 rankings before ultimately winding up the season at No. 6 in the nation. To top it off, the band was featured in a video produced by Justice, a Grammy award-winning, internationally known dance music duo.

Such laurels “might surprise people who don’t follow HBCU bands,” Roberts says, “but people who do are not surprised. Norfolk has an extremely well-rounded program and they play really well.”

They’re fun to hear and watch, blending funky dance moves with sharp choreography and a “very unique marching style,” Roberts says.

“It’s like part military and part Troy – like long ago, a back-in-the-day feel. I can always pick them out from other bands.”

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Band camp is grueling

It’s called “90s” – and it’s learned at band camp, a grueling affair that consumes the two weeks before fall classes begin.

Drum major Caleb Latham demonstrates: “You gotta lift your knees high like this, so it makes a 90-degree angle, with your toes pointed toward the ground.”

Nineties require a lot of stamina. Days start early at band camp, with physical training at 6 a.m., followed by marching and drilling, music rehearsal and individual practice, more PT, drilling and rehearsing that goes on as late at 11 pm.

Beathea and Assistant Band Director Stephanie Sanders leave students in charge as much as possible.

“This is their band and they can’t learn to lead if we’re not willing to let them try,” Beathea says. “And to tell you the truth — trying to keep up with a bunch of 18- and 19- year-olds, especially in this heat — forget it!”

Students choose the songs, herd practices and lead performances. Veteran members coach rookies — no hazing allowed. Eighty freshmen joined this season. Hardly anyone with basic skills and enough heart is turned away.

Beathea recruits to fill holes but scholarship money is always tight. The band’s annual budget was among the slashed — from nearly $1 million to $400,000 – and its headcount plummeted to 110.

Now, rebounded to traditional size, “we’re still working with that same amount of money,” Beathea says. "I get it, though. The administration has been very supportive — they love this band. Bands are just expensive.”

Helping the bottom line: Extra money raised or donated by alumni, churches or community, or funneled toward the band from various school pockets.

Enough has recently come in to replace almost all old instruments with shiny new ones and buy crisp new uniforms – the first in nearly 20 years — at $800 a pop.

Another thing different this season: three drum majors instead of the typical two.

Two of them — Caleb and Joshua Latham — are 25-year-old twins who grew up in Norfolk. At the head of the trio: John Hill – aka Mr. Spartan – a 22-year-old from Detroit.

All three are seniors and accomplished musicians, but instead of playing in the band they man its helm.

At field shows, they’re the ones out front, furiously conducting in towering plumed helmets, helping everyone stay in sync while pulling off their own routines.

In the classroom, they’re expected to maintain good grades.

In the bandroom, they instill standards while setting the emotional tone.

Caleb gets teary eyed when he witnesses a rookie limping through a strained knee to keep going. Joshua counsels a new cymbals player who hasn’t mastered the music but refuses to ask for help.

“No one can force you to practice, bro,” he says quietly, “but nobody can do it alone. I need help all the time. You gotta put aside the attitude and learn to ask for help.”

Both twins say marching band was a life raft.

“Our mom is a super-hero and she did the best she could for us,” Caleb says, “but there were times when the lights were turned off and food was thin. We’ve been in and out of school. And we haven’t always been on the right path.”

Joshua says he once got into so much trouble he was kicked off the NSU campus for two years:

“I wasn’t making good decisions. But the Legion believes in third and fourth chances. They taught me how to own up to my mistakes. And get my head right.”

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And then the magic

In the bandroom, all musicians are now assembled, filed in quietly, standing at attention, eyes straight ahead, instruments ready.

John Hill steps onto the podium. It’s his third year as Mr. Spartan.

“Good morning, band,” he says pleasantly.

“Good morning, sir,” they reply in unison.

John says band was a “safe haven” for him while growing up in downtown Detroit:

“I could escape the tense environment and surround myself with positive people. When I’m in band all I think about is the music.”

He conducts with a tranquil voice and fluid arms — at odds with the over-exaggerated arm pumping and rigid strutting the drum majors bring to field shows.

To warm up, he asks each instrument section to play and hold the same note, listening carefully, tracking any sour sounds down to specific players.

“You’re slightly flat,” he says gently. “Try again? That’s better.”

And then, the magic that is music swells. Drums, horns, woodwinds, cymbals — separate yet one, entwined in melody.

Jevon Baldwin, a 19-year-old snare drummer from Orlando, Fla., says he first heard about the Legion from a friend in high school, who dreamed of marching at NSU and showed him a video of the band in action:

“He was like my brother, but he got into drugs and drifted away. Now, I’m living his dream.”

Beathea, who’s been working with the Legion since 2000, says Baldwin is talented enough to be sought after by any university band.

Baldwin says he turned down two full scholarships to other schools, patching together financial aid to come here.

Maybe that wasn’t practical.

“My mother has health problems and we don’t have much money.”

He pauses to steady his voice.

“But I just had to be part of this.”

Joanne Kimberlin, 757-446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com