The Purpose of DCI

[JimF-LowBari]

I know a lot about the legacy of Landis in baseball. He did do a lot of good, but also made a lot of bad decisions that eventually led to his being booted.

Ever see "Eight Men Out"? Favorite line is Studs Terkel talking about Landis to the Ring Larder character.

"He's a federal judge.... leads the league in reversed decisions".

[garfield]

I didn't read everything, but in short, DCI is like the NCAA and their associated conferences. The NCAA and conferences operate at the behest of the universities it serves and is responsible for maintaining rules, marketing, scheduling, and providing a framework for cooperation. It is not responsible for the success or fiscal health of it's member institutions. Because the NCAA president serves at the behest of college presidents and because membership is voluntary, the NCAA is in somewhat of a toothless position as well. DCI has little influence over the direction of drum corps because it is simply following directives from it's member institutions. One difference I see from the NCAA is that, in my opinion, there doesn't seem to be enough equity between members in DCI. There are definitely certain voices which are more influential than others. This probably has a lot to do with the fact there are way fewer member organizations in DCI than the NCAA.

If one is looking for someone to blame for an issue, blame the corps themselves. You could also blame them for for creating a toothless governing body which has little room to make autonomous decisions it believes to benefit the activity as a whole. On the flipside, the founders of DCI were trying to escape the "authoritarianism" of the old VFW-type governing bodies who dictated virtually everything to its members. I'm pragmatic about DCI in the same way I'm pragmatic about our government. The very nature of the organization sometimes prevents it from making sound decisions, but it's the best system we've got. Maybe a benevolent dictatorship is what we need ;)

I'm no sports authority, but it seems the NCAA has something that DCI doesn't, or that DCI doesn't use - a penalty system. NCAA maintains a litany of off-the-field rules from recruiting to financial to policy. DCI has rules that pertain to the field, and the age rule, of course, but are the two powers even remotely similar in the penalties that can be applied to direct the actions and activities of its member orgs and, hence, the direction of the activity?

Still, DCI is not as toothless as you describe, and the proof is in the by-laws that were used to stop a takeover of the many by the few. There are protections that one can say benefit the activity as a whole more than the members. For that the corps themselves deserve some credit, even if no one had ever interpreted them as meaning what they did or anticipated that they'd be used as they were. Without those protections DCI would not be today what it is, the ED would likely be gone, and we'd have a bifurcated activity where any benefit derived would be enjoyed by the few, while the many would be cast adrift, even as they believed they'd "saved" the activity.

I don't think the irony between now and 1972 is lost on many. The causes of the 1972 breakup were the same that drove the G7 - the desire to be master of one's own future. Human nature doesn't change even as the activity does.

A significant difference between DCI and politics is that we elect what we get in politics, and the actions of politicians have the power to dramatically affect one's life in direct-impact (mostly negative, IMO) ways. Had the G7 been victorious I might be forlorn but, in the big picture, nothing else in my life would change. I believe the political system is the singularly best one and a benevolent dictator is not a better replacement. While the current structure of DCI is, by far and IMO, not the best one for "us", some of those of us on the outside looking in, it is the best one for the member corps, by far. Which is why replacing it with a more holistic approach to governance will be exceedingly difficult. A step in the possible right direction, IMO, is the recognition that corps are members, not directors, and that corps representation might be better placed in the hands of the corps boards instead of the directors.

If I don't like my politician, I just pull a different lever.

[HornTeacher]

His name is considered a swear word in many parts of PA (aka Penn State land).

Google Kenesaw Mountain Landis and MLB. He was installed as the baseball czar after the 1919 World Series (Black Sox) fix. He played Joe Hard ### and "cleaned up" baseball like the owners wanted to restore the image. Problem was he kept going.... Something about after getting the power he kept wanting to use it......

Let's see -- what's the old line? Something like "Power corrupts -- and absolute power corrupts absolutely."