At 8 P.M. in mid-November, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is already going dark. The sidewalks are empty, and the cold is settling in.
From the outside, Strauss Performing Arts Center looks like it’s gone to sleep, but a rehearsal space tucked away in its halls is just starting to wake up.
Sound bounces off the walls in room 109: a tuba bellows something low and metallic, a drumstick snaps-snaps-snaps on a snare, and a bass guitar riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” rattles the seats that slowly fill with student musicians from across campus.
As students trickle into 109 from their dorms, evening classes, and jobs, something cohesive starts to take shape
When music majors and non-music majors alike take their seats, UNO’s Director of Bands Joshua Kearney moves to the front of the room.
He raises his hand, and fragments of sound begin to align into the fully formed songs that are synonymous with Omaha Athletics.
This is the Maverick Machine: UNO’s spirit band, the soundtrack to the university experience, and a community for students of all walks of university life.
When Kearney was hired at UNO 11 years ago, the Maverick Machine didn’t exist. Baxter Arena was still under construction and didn’t have a roof. The idea of a spirit band, one that could carry hockey, volleyball, and basketball on its back, was just an idea.
Part of the Fabric
Today, you can go to a game and you don’t just see or hear the Maverick Machine, you feel it.
Skates carve into ice, a hand connects with a volleyball, a basketball snaps through a net, and underneath it all, drums, tubas, clarinets, trumpets, and basses stitch them together. It’s the sound that tells you where you are.
“It's become really integrated into the fabric of what it means to be a Maverick, and I know for a fact it’s made a difference,” Kearney said.
Back in Strauss, the Machine is a cross-section of campus. Music majors sit next to aviation majors. Criminal justice undergrads share stands with graduate students. They come from all corners of UNO, funneling into the room on a night when most of campus has already clocked out.
Carly Bishop, a Bennington native and a criminal justice and forensic psychology double major by day, serves as the Machine’s quartermaster. With her duties comes the responsibility for rehearsal room setup, inventory, and helping make sure her bandmates are in the right place at the right time.
Bishop got a head start at UNO through dual enrollment and could have graduated by the time she was 19. She stayed because her connection to the Machine was so strong and added depth and meaning to her campus experience thanks to the late night band practices and time spent on road trips to conference tournaments, and as of last year, UNO’s first-ever March Madness appearance in Providence, Rhode Island.
“The Maverick Machine has impacted my college experience, and I don't think I would have enjoyed college as much as I have if I wasn't part of the Machine,” Bishop said. “It has brought me some of my closest friends. It has brought me on these amazing trips to places I probably never would have been...on top of that, I think it's introduced me to a lot of people that I probably never would have met...and it's made me feel a lot more connected and made me feel like I've had a stronger place here at UNO. It's given me an identity as a Maverick.”
The Machine Comes to Life
After a long day and a physically demanding rehearsal, the first 10-minute break comes. Instead of taking time to catch up on missed text and scroll on social media, the Machine comes to life again.
The room fills with side chatter and inside jokes, and little grooves and solos percolate from different corners of the room. No one rushes to shut it down. The noise is part of the process. That looseness, that permission to bring yourself fully into the experience, is what keeps students coming back coming back. It’s also what makes the Maverick Machine more than a pep band.
“It's a reset for me,” Bishop said. “I'm a really social person. I love to interact with people and I love making music. And so no matter how tired I am, no matter how long my week has been or what the exams look like coming to the Maverick Machine, whether it's a rehearsal or a game, I walk out feeling refreshed. I walk out feeling restored. I'm in a better mood than when I was going into it. And so, no matter how tired I am, I just know if I can go play my instrument with these people, I'm going to be happy by the end of it.”
Bishop’s fellow quartermaster Michael Abboud sits with the tubas, headphones hanging around his neck. A senior music education major and a Omaha Central High School grad, Abboud is the backbone of the beloved tuba parade at Omaha Hockey games.
Between the second and third periods, Abboud will lead the tuba section around the Baxter Arena concourse performing Bruce Channel’s “Hey! Baby” as fans stop and sing and dance along.
It’s an aspect of the game day experience so deeply loved by Omaha Hockey fans that when Jon Martin, known as "The Fishman” for starting the tradition of tossing a fish onto the ice, passed away in 2023, his family asked the tubas section to lead a tuba parade funeral procession through Aksarben Village.
“If you're out there watching us, you can tell that we're passionate about it,” Abboud said. “So then [fans] are smiling and singing along. That aspect of seeing people's faces light up is so rewarding.”
That’s the thing about the Maverick Machine: it shows up. Not just when the lights are on and the crowd is loud, but when the room goes quiet and the music has to mean something else.
In the Machine, each member brings an intense focus to mastering their individual parts. But the priority at each practice is bringing those individual pieces together and injecting energy into each song befitting of a Maverick game day.
Music is Forever
In many ways, it’s a mirror to what happens at the university every day. The Machine, like UNO, brings together different majors, different futures, different reasons for being here, and supports their development into something unique and made for the moment.
“It feels amazing to be able to contribute to that,” Abboud said. “Because I've also seen it in the band, I've seen it as someone in the audience watching the band, and I've also been there when there isn't a band. And you can definitely tell that the atmosphere that the band brings just is a whole different thing.”
When the last note fades, instrument cases are snapped shut, and the room is tidied up, and students go their separate ways into campus and throughout the community in the late fall night.
Kearney has seen enough students come and go over the years to see lifelong bonds form and experience the power of music.
“I think playing music is one of those things that transcends someone's graduation date. If I play clarinet, I play clarinet forever. And whether I'm a physician at UNMC, or if I'm a freshman biology major and I want to play my clarinet, we can play clarinet together,” Kearney said. “I think it's a natural point for people to make those connections because music is forever.”
Campus is quiet again, but the sound is tucked into muscle memory, into routine, into identity, and ready for showtime.
The Maverick Machine is the soundtrack of the UNO experience, sure. But more than that, it’s proof that a real, meaningful community doesn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it just starts with noise, until someone gives it a downbeat, and a group of students decide to become louder together.
