For 27 years, Morgan Hill
’s Mike Rubino was the driving force behind Live Oak’s Emerald
Regime band.
For 27 years, Morgan Hill’s Mike Rubino was the driving force behind Live Oak’s Emerald Regime band.
He led the band to its first national titles, took its members around the globe, directed the first high school marching band to play on the Great Wall of China and the first non-military band to perform in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. This weekend he will be honored with the recognition he never sought, but always deserved.
Rubino will receive the Leadership Excellence Award from Leadership Morgan Hill Saturday in the Lodge at CordeValle during a reception, dinner and tribute program. The event, featuring a silent auction, will benefit the community program designed to train and inspire future community leaders.
“This is an outstanding honor,” Rubino said. “This was just me doing my job.”
Rubino will be joined by friends and family as well as former students whose lives he helped shape during the decades he was the leader of the band. The Emerald Regime was Rubino’s life. Luckily he wasn’t alone.
Cricket Rubino, his wife of more than 30 years, was the color guard director. Rubino said there was no way his marriage could have survived had she not been a part of the Emerald Regime.
From 1971 to 1998 Rubino pushed, marched, drilled and inspired students to two national championships. It was never easy work, former students said, but they will always remember the tenacity of their beloved band director.
“If it was something (Rubino) really thought was worthwhile, it seems like there were very few things to get in the way of getting his plans accomplished,” said Ken McGrath, a member of the Emerald Regime from 1984-1987 who is now a freelance musician in Los Angeles. “I’m not sure if no was in his vocabulary. If it was something he truly believed in, he had great way of overcoming obstacles to make sure it happened.”
The best in the nation
When Rubino was hired to take over the marching band in 1971, he was asked how long it would take to build a great band. He quickly guessed about five years. Sure enough, in 1976, they did it.
“It was a shot in the dark,” Rubino said. “It was not until the prelims came out and we were in second place. We were so close that it urged the kids on.”
The next year, Live Oak returned. They chose a complicated show that incorporated several separate themes, which at the end had segments of the band playing at a different pace from the other. The judge on the field thought they were marching out of step.
They lost by one 500th of a point.
In 1978, the Emerald Regime returned and won it again.
“The next year, the kids were angry,” Rubino said. “Nobody but us was going to win. We worked harder the next year.”
To win the competitions, Rubino expected everything to be perfect, from practices to marching back to the band room.
“He taught me at the age of 15 that the sure way to be a champion is to outwork everyone else,” said David McGrae, a Gilroy Unified School District board member, who marched for Rubino to the championship in 1978. “That was the Emerald Regime secret. We outworked, outprepared, and outhustled all our competition. This is a valuable lesson to learn as a young man. It has carried me throughout my life.”
“The Journey of a Lifetime”
In 1987, Rubino started the “journey of a lifetime” program where he took the Emerald Regime to perform in exotic locations throughout the world. Often, those locations took students to strange foreign countries, far away from the comforts of California.
“He’s a visionary,” said Cricket Rubino. “He thinks big thoughts and he puts those thoughts into action. That wraps him up; he knew exactly what had to be there to achieve what he achieved.”
During the later years of the Cold War, Rubino brought his students to the Soviet Union and China, which were both massive undertakings.
“I remember at the time having a representative from China come and we did an audition,” McGrath said. “We showed them our marching group, then we performed a concert piece and a jazz thing. We had to give them a picture of what we were all about at the high school.”
In preparation for the trips, Rubino worked hard to get his students as prepared as possible. Before going to the Soviet Union, three students from Estonia came over and lived with families from the Emerald Regime.
The students were expected to memorize the national anthems of the countries they were visiting.
McGrath credited how everything turned out to Rubino’s ability to simply get things done.
“He always seems to have incredible knack for leading the troops,” McGrath said. “There is not one thing specifically in his personality that lends itself to do that effectively. If there is something he really thought was worthwhile, it seems like there are very few things to get in the way of getting it accomplished.”
The students who loved him
Rubino was more than just a director, he was a teacher. For all the work Rubino put the students through, there was a lesson behind their labor. A lesson many of his students over the years didn’t realize they were learning until later in life.
“The reason why the lessons were so effective was because we didn’t know we were getting them at the time,” said Katie Johnson, who marched for Rubino during his last year as band director. “That was definitely the case, I don’t ever remember him doing the top 10 reasons for success in life. He led by example. What ever he was demanding of us, he also demanded of himself.”
The last measure
In 1998, Rubino decided it was time to step down. His second daughter graduated from high school, and he saw that as good point to move on.
“I just started to get tired,” Rubino said. “The program demands so much of your time. It just wears you down after a while. I was not being efficient to the kids. They didn’t know it, but I felt it.”
During the 27 years, Rubino constantly spent his nights practicing or performing, and his weekends competing. In the spring, color guard started up, demanding even more of his time.
Leaving the Emerald Regime didn’t mean the end of Rubino’s service to the music world. He stayed on through October 2004, working with the elementary school program which he started nearly 15 years before.
Rubino is now a judge for marching bands and drum corps across the nation and even Japan.
For more information on the Leadership Dinner honoring Rubino, call Bob Martin at 782-0565. A limited number of tickets are still available, call Sandy de la Cuesta 779-0076
Cheeto Barrera is an intern for the Morgan Hill Times. He can be reached at cb******@mo*************.com or call 779-4106.
