In August 2021, during the yearly meeting of the Longhorn Band and the Longhorn Alumni Band, Clifton Croomes was left speechless by a special gift.

“I was in the band in the ‘90s, and the alumni band found my drum from that time,” he says.

Croomes was a member of the band when Texas Athletics switched from the Southwest Conference to the Big 12 Conference, winning both along the way. Now he is leading the Longhorn Band in Texas Athletics’ inaugural Southeastern Conference season.

“It’s a dream come true because very few people get to come back to where they got their start, lead it, take your own experiences from that, and then move it forward,” Croomes says. “I take my experience as an alumni and also my experience as a music educator, and I can serve both functions.”

In the time between his graduation and return to the Forty Acres, Croomes worked and performed with ensembles across the world, including in London and Paris as well as in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Japan.

Croomes says his time overseas was a period of growth as he learned about the global aspect of music and the ways it can unite people. He also gained an understanding of how to use music to give the audience a performance to remember.

“It helped me form our platform of how we want to entertain the fans and what works to get crowds excited,” he says.

Croomes has directed bands at both the high school and collegiate levels. After directing schools in Georgetown and San Antonio, Croomes became the assistant director of bands at Louisiana State University, where he is also an alumnus, having earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in Baton Rouge.

“My time at LSU was so valuable because I got to see a major college program from the inside out and see how it was run,” Croomes says.

While Croomes was at LSU, he received an offer from Jerry Junkin, his former professor at UT, to come back to the Longhorn Band as the director.

“(Croomes) has always been the same guy. He was … always highly motivated,” says Junkin, who holds the Vincent R. and Jane D. DiNino Chair for the Director of Bands. “He is a person that everyone gravitates to. I think that’s what helps make him an effective leader. He’s a kind human being who’s interested in the welfare of his colleagues, his friends, but certainly his students.”

Croomes is the band’s 15th director and its first Black director. Having been exposed to diverse environments in music, he is committed to finding ways to expand the band.

“It gives them a sense of diversity in the world, seeing a person of color as the leader, but also somebody that really cares about them as a person. It brings the sense of our family dynamic for the band closer together,” Croomes says. “I saw that there was a need for more diversity in the band, and we’ve recruited as such to bring in international students, students from all backgrounds, students from smaller communities, students from big communities.”

Croomes is also thinking about the future, especially with the rise of technology since his time as a member of the band. He has turned the Longhorn Band into a paperless organization by using PDFs for the sheet music and drill formations rather than printing them out.

Accompanying his technological advancements are his aspirations to travel with the band for more performances.

“For the future, the next level is traveling internationally and taking our brand of music and entertainment to other places,” Croomes says. “I’ve taught in other cultures and performed in other countries, and I’d love to take the band to do things like that. I would love for them to get to experience that, and also for people in other countries to get to see what we’re all about.”