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Such a great and respectful man. I could not see him for a long time yet when I did he would pick up like it was yesterday with all the stories. RIP .

RIP to one of the greatest people ever to participate in drum corps

Perhaps it's not my place to post this, but I logged onto FB this evening and it was lighting up with this news... George Hayek, one of the co-founders of the Hawthorne Caballeros back in 1946 and active with the organization every day since, has passed away. He celebrated his 90th birthday on Oct. 1. Rest in peace, George. Such a wonderful man, and a friend to so many of us.

This old tripe again? Back in high school, the band used to be able to leave after the halftime show since more often than not, we were getting up early the next morning to haul out to a contest somewhere. Seeing as between the band and their parents, the second half crowd was anemic as hell, the athletic department asked that the band stay for the whole game. But we'd get the third quarter off from being in the stands if we wanted. More often than not, we'd be a bit late getting back into the stands after halftime as we were using the restrooms and getting snacks at the band parents' concession stands but we often had enough to hit the school song should the team score in the 3rd quarter. One week, some idiots from the football team came down the band hall with all sorts of bully talk and idiotic smack talk. The band director took it up with the coach and got smirked at and blown off. The AD said he'd "look into it" and sat on it. That Saturday we had the rare weekend where we did two shows by getting an early enough slot at one to truck it to another location to do a night show. We won both and swept captions. Lots of hardware. Seeing as the football team was in the conference gutter (again) and nothing much had changed about football player behavior (although it had lessened, it hadn't stopped), the band director marched us into the stadium for the next Friday game with the drum majors and color guard toting not only the previous week's hardware, but the entire season's hardware to date. Before taking the field for halftime, they marched it all to the track and put it in a planned display formation then we gave a lights out performance of our show to a crowd that was mostly band parents anyway. Since we got the third quarter off by the above agreement, we took the WHOLE third quarter off and ran some sectionals in the corners of the stadium property. A number of parents came to watch our sectionals as, unless they came to practices, they never really saw how we prepared and perfected as an ensemble. A number of students were curious too and this gutted the crowd for the third quarter. We were back in action in the 4th in the stands and as loud and raucous as ever in our support of the game (which turned out to be an upset win over a rival). The next Monday, the coach wrote an apology letter, players stopped their smack, and the AD said, "We get your point, don't do that again."

And me, with THE Ohio State Univ and TBDBITL. Their style and tradition is quirky and fun and works perfectly for them, and their support network is H-U-G-E. Everyone knows it because the product draws thousands each home-Saturday to pack St. John's Arena to watch ONLY the bands for about 40 minutes before the game. The desire to be among those who get a spot inside is simply and strictly the quality of the product that they put "on the field" of that floor.

Perhaps the show wasn't emotional, but for the Blue Devils, it might have been an emotional season. Placing 4th in prelims, but 1st in finals, after Crown got 1st in both prelims and semis? Sounds a lot like Phantom beating out BD on Finals night in 2008.

Murray State University as well.

Rutgers plays the Illini tomorrow. Clash of the titans.

There are other schools where the band is so popular they named their post game performance the 5th quarter.

This is one of my favorites....

Probably the same comparison at UMass.

The band is better than the football team at Illinois!

There are some schools.... Ohio State and Texas A&M come to mind, among others.... where the football fans might riot if their bands could not perform at halftime!!!

I'm glad he's getting beat up. My son was in the Marching Illini for four years and they rehearsed every night. And then he studied.

Another dunderheaded jock sniffer strikes again.

I've been gratified that the main Cleveland newspaper has been conducting an online poll for the past six weeks asking readers to pick the best local marching band. Of course, it's not really about "best". It's about most popular--or maybe it would be better described as, "Which band can get their students, parents, and community most enthused?" But they've racked up several hundred thousand votes, and yes, that includes a lot of people voting more than once, but just getting people to read and comment on the "marching arts" is a good thing. I've certainly taken the opportunity to mention drum corps repeatedly in the comments section, including posting video of "The Wink". But let's be honest: this FoxSports editorial's real purpose is the same as that poll: to drive traffic to the website.

Speaking of "Carmen," there's a ton of music from the opera that has never seen the drum corps field which I'd love to hear, and it would not have to be used in a "Carmen" themed show. Other operas I'd love to see explored are Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet" and Verdi's Il Trovatore." It would be a technical challenge too. Opera is not that easy to pull off on the drum corps field. One last opera pitch: "Au Fond du Temple Saint" from Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers." It's a great tenor and baritone duet with beauty and intensity. I looked on Corpsreps and did not see it listed which surprised me a bit, but if performed it could be one of those memorable moments.