Kevin Golden started off 2023 marching to his own drum.

Well, he marched to his own drum and that of the 30 other members of his drum line in the Pennsylvania State University Marching Blue Band which took part in the Jan. 2 Tournament of Roses Parade.

Golden, 18, the son of Deanna and Kyle Golden of Penn Township, is a freshman at Penn State and plays the bass drum in the 320-member marching band.

And, although Golden was a drummer with the Knoch High School marching band, jazz band, concert band and pit orchestra before graduating last spring, he had to audition to become a member of the PSU squad.

“In the spring, I submitted a video audition that was scored,” he said. “ If you did well, you were invited to band camp the week before school. You do another audition at band camp, which is more marching-focused to see how you do with the other band members.

“If you pass that, you’re in the band,“ he said.

Golden and his bandmates played at Penn State football games and various pep rallies throughout the fall.

“We practice four days a week, five if there is game,” Golden said. Between practice, beginning classes toward his biology premed major and navigating the college experience, he said his first semester was in a word, rough.

“It’s a completely different environment,” he said. “It’s definitely doable, but you are going to work hard for it.”

The work got harder in December when the band learned it was going to participate in the Rose Parade, where the Nittany Lions took on the Utah Utes in the Rose Bowl. That meant extra practices before the band flew out to California on a chartered plane on New Year’s Eve.

After landing, the band had a quick performance at Pasadena City College. Band members were free for the rest of New Year’s Eve.

"It was raining so, we couldn’t explore the city. It was just a night off to get acclimated,“ he said. And New Year’s Day brought more practice.

It’s a longstanding tradition that if Jan. 1 falls on a Sunday, the Rose Parade is pushed back until Jan. 2.

“Our main preparation when we got to California, we had a day of practice at a local community college, ” Golden said.

The day of the parade found Golden and his bandmates up at 4:30 a.m. in their downtown Los Angeles hotel and on the bus by 5:30 a.m. for the trip to Pasadena.

The band was lined up in its spot in the parade in time for it to kick off at 8 a.m.

The Penn State band was the 35th unit in the parade.

“I think the PSU cheer squad was in front of us. It’s a 5½-mile parade. Walking that much while playing is pretty much a struggle, but it was a lot of fun and very rewarding,” said Golden.

“It was perfect weather, 50s and cloudy, but was nice to march in it,” he said.

“Definitely you have to focus on your own part and also feel that part with the rest of the baseline and with the entire drum line,” he said.

After the three-hour parade, the band went to the Rose Bowl, where it played before the game, at halftime of the contest and between times in the stands.

His mother was able to see her son both in the parade and at the game.

“We were coming back from a different vacation, and I pulled up the stream from a random news site,” Deanna Golden said. “At home, we recorded the parade and the game, so we were able to see if from a different view.”

She said she saw Kevin several times in the parade and in the Rose Bowl.

“During the halftime show, the Rose Bowl gave each band some air time,” she said. “The camera passed right over the drum line, and we were able to see him. I thought it was a drone, but he said it was a camera on a wire.”

Kevin Golden will be headed back to the Happy Valley campus for his second semester and more band practice. Its next big gig will be the April 15 Blue and White Game, a football team intrasquad scrimmage.

“I absolutely want to stick with the band. You have to try out every year, but I definitely hope to do it the rest of my college career, ” he said.