I was a friend of Bruce Paynter's and I marched next to his sister, Megan, during what I considered to be "NUMB's Heyday" in the mid-to-late 70s when I would frequently hear things from other competing bands to the effect that "they were IN AWE of the bands that Northwestern put on the field." Justifiably so. Northwestern bands of that era could go toe-to-toe with the finest bands in the country, and NU would come away on top.
Perhaps the best example of this was in my Junior year, when we traveled to Ann Arbor for our NUMB away trip. The Wildcat team took a drubbing during the game, but the Michigan crowd stayed long after the game JUST TO HEAR NUMB'S POSTGAME. We had a "stud" trumpet player at the time, Billie Worthen, who simply would not get tired of playing. In contrast, the Michigan Band put on a "Tribute to the Wizard of Oz" featuring students dressed up as Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, etc. and the Michigan fans loudly booed THEIR OWN BAND while calling on NUMB for encore after encore. A few weeks later, Michigan fired their own band director and offered the job to John Paynter, who turned it down. He was "Northwestern Purple" through-and-through, and his son Bruce produced a very inspiring book about his dad.
All of the Paynters just lived and breathed Northwestern Athletics and did a LOT (mostly unknown even by those familiar with NU) to advocate in favor of the football team in particular.
It was perhaps unsurprising that I was just told by a good friend that Coach Fitz was one of the FIRST people in line to attend Bruce's wake this morning, and I know that Fitz was one of the many players who had been positively affected by the support of the entire Paynter family, both as a student and more recently as a coach. As was mentioned above, Marietta Paynter passed away about a year ago, and the only surviving members of the immediate family are Megan and Bruce's son, Brett. (Bruce also had another son, Bryan, who attended NU and worked for the team doing videos of their practices. Sadly, Bryan passed away from bone cancer in 2008 when he was only 21 years old.)
I will miss seeing Bruce at NU football games tremendously, but I will continue to be inspired by the tremendous faith that he and his dad had in the future of the NU football program. May Bruce and his parents all rest in peace.