Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:50 PM CDTNo matter how often his mother tells him to stay off the field, Larry Carr keeps finding his way onto the field in the midst of the Avondale High School band's activities.
At the Marching Blue Devils Oct. 14 practice at Avondale Stadium, Elisha Carr was at it again, calling her 6-year-old son off the field.
"Larry, come back here," she said before turning to a visitor to say, "this is what we have to go through all the time. He just goes out there even when he's not supposed to because he loves it."
Larry, who is a first-grader at Midway Elementary School in Decatur, is no stranger to the band. During games he is a fixture in the band section playing the cymbals and beating in tune on the snare drums or dancing in unison.
Sitting in the stands with his mother, Larry, who loves the movie "Drumline," began humming "Flight of the Bubble Bee," one of the numbers featured in the movie, when he had a revelation.
"We should play that," he said trying to run out on the field again while the band was practicing formations for its Oct. 24 homecoming performance. Larry will also be taking part in the band's homecoming show.
Band members have christened Larry "Drummer Boy" and "Lil Phat."
Jaleel Wheeler, an 11th-grader and the band's drum major, said they enjoy having Larry around.
"We got a little a drum major now," he said last week. "We can mold him into someone who can make the show beautiful. That's my boy Larry. He can get down."
The admiration is mutual.
Larry says he was excited about taking the field with the marching band.
"The band is playing good," he said. "They play like they are crunked."
Larry discovered the band last fall when his grandmother started taking him to games to see his aunt Melissa Birt, a drummer, play.
His enthusiasm for the band was infectious and pretty soon he was on the field dancing with them. Then his mother starting taking him to practice.
Now he even dresses like bandmembers in pint-size versions of their jogging suits and blue and white uniform.
Carr says Larry makes himself useful and does everything the band does.
"He brings out their water bottles. If they do pushups during practice he does them, and he dances sometimes," she said. "He rides the bus with them when they have away games."
His mom says that Larry, who loves hip hop and R&B music, is constantly dancing and tapping on whatever is near him with his fingers or drumsticks.
At first, Carr said she didn't think much of her son's passion for music until she heard of his antics at Avondale games.
"People kept coming up to me and saying, 'You should have seen your baby at the game.'"
When she finally went to a game in September, Carr was shocked to see her son get up and join the band on the field and start dancing. After the game, former Avondale band director Johnathan Murphy asked her to get Larry some cymbals.
Larry, who has no time for the toys that occupy most 6-year-olds, says he just enjoys music.
