Pride Spotlight: Tyler Youngquist

Tyler Youngquist has always been up for a challenge, and it was no different in the fifth grade. Youngquist chose to play the french horn despite other people’s warnings that the instrument would be difficult to master. He’s stayed true to it for 10 years now.

“I think it was because people said it was hard,” Youngquist said, “and I was like ‘alright, let’s try it.’”

He eventually came to learn how to play other instruments like the piano and now strums the ukulele occasionally. Youngquist, a junior music education major, came from a family of musicians where his father was a band teacher. Although Youngquist is away from his family and hometown of Lennox, S.D., he’s found his home in The Pride of the Dakotas.

“It kind of becomes a family of those marching band kids,” Youngquist said. “All those marching nerds have a place to funnel into once they come to college. It’s a cool group of people to be around because you get to know a wide variety of individuals you wouldn’t know elsewhere and we all enjoy marching band, and you get an excuse to go to all the [football] games.”

Because of his participation in The Pride, Youngquist has never experienced a football game anywhere other than The Pride section of the stands. And even though he does not sit in the “student” section, he still feels the energy and spirit brought to the game because of The Pride. “I feel like it’s just a part of the university that I get to be a part of, a piece of the SDSU puzzle  that I get to be  apart of … It brought me to all the football games and showed me what school spirit is at SDSU because The Pride is such a huge part of the football experience.”

Youngquist is a second -year drum major for The Pride and said he owes his participation in the organization to helping him recognize his passion.

“I was in The Pride my freshman year, and I wasn’t a music major at that point,” Youngquist said. “I was in pre-vet at that time and it was because of my involvement in that [The Pride] and symphonic band and some wise words from professors, and chemistry, that convinced me I was actually passionate about music.”