[hostrauser]

1996 Phantom didn't really start out slow. I mean, 4th place at Quarterfinals was their lowest placement all season. Still, they had trailed both the Blue Devils and the Cadets at every show that season, usually by multiple points. In fact, I think Finals night was the only time Phantom beat the Cadets all year. They finished 3.7 points behind the Blue Devils at Quarterfinals and erased that gap in two shows. THAT is impressive.

1999 Vanguard doesn't qualify. They won every show but one prior to Championships week, before scrambling to catch up to a Blue Devils squad they were beating handily at the start of the season. But neither Vanguard nor BD finished outside of the Top 2 at any show that season.

Even 1987 Cadets is a little misleading. Yes, Spirit beat them three times that year... but the only other corps to beat the Cadets in 1987 was Vanguard! The 1987 Cadets are another corps that finished 1st or 2nd at every single show. (As others posted while I was typing this.)

As someone else said, the level of execution these corps achieve is so high it's almost impossible to go on a huge tear and pass up several of the corps at the top.

This post has been edited by hostrauser: 14 May 2012 - 12:21 PM

[KeithHall]

Was Garfield down there with Crossmen?

[stevedb1975]

hostrauser, on 14 May 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

1996 Phantom didn't really start out slow. I mean, 4th place at Quarterfinals was their lowest placement all season. Still, they had trailed both the Blue Devils and the Cadets at every show that season, usually by multiple points. In fact, I think Finals night was the only time Phantom beat the Cadets all year. They finished 3.7 points behind the Blue Devils at Quarterfinals and erased that gap in two shows. THAT is impressive.

1999 Vanguard doesn't qualify. They won every show but one prior to Championships week, before scrambling to catch up to a Blue Devils squad they were beating handily at the start of the season. But neither Vanguard nor BD finished outside of the Top 2 at any show that season.

Even 1987 Cadets is a little misleading. Yes, Spirit beat them three times that year... but the only other corps to beat the Cadets in 1987 was Vanguard! The 1987 Cadets are another corps that finished 1st or 2nd at every single show. (As others posted while I was typing this.)

As someone else said, the level of execution these corps achieve is so high it's almost impossible to go on a huge tear and pass up several of the corps at the top.

And as I also said (probably while you were typing), the Cadets were 1st and 2nd place during the early season because they did not see anyone in the top 6 during the early season. You can't make a case on the Cadets being in usual competitive form based on "1st and 2nd place finishes" against the Crossmen and Florida Wave.

Lets face it and call a spade a spade. The 1987 Garfield Cadets is a MIRACLE story! And they DESERVE for it to be remembered that way. I recall a story of a multi member pile up the Cadets had at one show in 1987. They were ROUGH in the early season that year.

This post has been edited by stevedb1975: 14 May 2012 - 12:29 PM

[Northern Thunder]

Using that theory, you could say Phantom Regiment went from "around 16th place" on June 27, 1976 (the 1976 DCI Championship 16th place Marquis beat Phantom that day) to 4th place at the 1976 DCI Championships.
Let's face it, Garfield's '87 show had tons of meat in it, and it certainly wasn't fully implemented or polished in June that season.

This post has been edited by Northern Thunder: 14 May 2012 - 12:29 PM

[stevedb1975]

Northern Thunder, on 14 May 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

Using that theory, you could say Phantom Regiment went from "around 16th place" on June 27, 1976 (the 1976 DCI Championship 16th place Marquis beat Phantom that day) to 4th place at the 1976 DCI Championships.

Considering the fact that Phantom was 10th place in 1975 and had not neven come into their own until the late season of 1976, that is not a far fetched thought at all. And another miracle story.

[jjeffeory]

stevedb1975, on 14 May 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

Then how do you explain Suncoast being right in there with them also? Granted, Suncoast STARTED weak as well but once they caught some momentum they were right there with Cadets and Spirit. Nah....I say Cadets started slow.

Sunday June 28, 1987<br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: georgia, 'trebuchet ms'; font-style: italic; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(233, 239, 246); ">West Chester PADCEPositionCorpsScore<br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: georgia, 'trebuchet ms'; font-style: italic; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(233, 239, 246); ">1Spirit of Atlanta 77.000
2Garfield Cadets 74.900
3Suncoast Sound 70.300




7 points at the beginning of the season isn't right in there with Spirit...
4.6 points between Cadets and Suncoast isn't either.

[BRASSO]

KeithHall, on 14 May 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

...I'd like to see a corps start out slow and throughout the season get better and beat corps until the night of finals they win it all!

I don't believe since the inception of DCI this has happened. I guess it came close with Madison in 1976(?).

Surprises are great for the health of the activity, imo.

[perc2100]

KeithHall, on 14 May 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

...I'd like to see a corps start out slow and throughout the season get better and beat corps until the night of finals they win it all!

I don't believe since the inception of DCI this has happened. I guess it came close with Madison in 1976(?).

Haven't read all the replies, but I'm pretty sure this happened less than four years ago with Phantom Regiment won DCI in 2008.
Heck, I think even last year Cadets started the year losing to Cavaliers, Crown and Blue Devils:
* 4th at their first show in TX
* 4th at the first DCI Regional in Minneapolis July 16
* 3rd at San Antonio July 23
then
* 2nd at Atlanta July 30
* 2nd at Allentown

before (finally) taking first against everyone at Quarters (technically they won the Tour of Champions thing, but that's not a DCI show).

[Northern Thunder]

stevedb1975, on 14 May 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

Though your argument has some valid points, here is how I come to my conclusion. Look at their corpsreps score link. Cadets rarely saw any of the top 6 contenders during the 87 season. It's easy to say that SCV and Spirit were the only corps that beat them when nobody else above Spirit ever (or rarely) saw them. Yet, it's a more logical conclusion to me that when Cadets hardly saw anyone substantial (until late July), for the "to be"10th place corps to have beat them at all would mean for a slow start for the Cadets. And for the record, this was a quite common pattern for the Cadets in the late 80s and early 90s. Crossmen used to beat them in the early 90s too.

You have to do a great deal of assuming (and dreaming) in order to rank Garfield as low as 10th place. You can't just say that because they didn't go face-to-face with corps "X" they were worse than corps "X".
That is one HUGE (and dangerous) assertion to make.

This post has been edited by Northern Thunder: 14 May 2012 - 01:22 PM

[glory]

Would "start out slow and throughout the season get better" mean that our champion would suck in June? Not trying to dis- the OP here, but this might be one of those ideas that works better as a movie script than a drum corps show.

Best for the fans is for all the corps to start out great and keep getting better. Yeah, a little drama of the sort Phantom scored in 96 and 08 is wonderful too. Just keep all our surprises on the upside.

HH