dc oldtimer Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 Heard many versions from those who were there. Don't choose to believe anything without more proof, but in this case it is fun to speculate.1) Troopers wanted in at 12th place. Why not get Muchachos biggest rival to do the dirty deed? Enter the Cavaliers. 2) The Muchachos were FAR from being the only corps to march overaged members back then. Disclaimer; no disrespect, just debating. 1) Not sure what you meaen by "biggest rival"? Cavaliers were hovering around 6th, 7th or 8th place. Muchachos were in the top three. What benefit would the Cavaliers have received besides moving up one place? 2) Maybe, but they got caught. As did the Bridgemen only a few years later. I can tell ya something though, a lot of corps mind their P's and Q's after the Muchacho disqualification. EVERYONE made sure that their files had updated birth certificates when DCI made a sweep of birth certificate checks. Lastly, I can also tell you, the first corp to be scrutinized was the Cavaliers in 75 & 76 and NO overaged members were found because we didn't have any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LancerFi Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 (edited) :sshh: Edited August 27, 2003 by LancerFi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scerpella Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 I'm going to ask one of those directors if he knows. If he tells me I'll have to answer in code. I'm kind of sure that he and others know who won prelims on that fateful day. Madison won, and that is from someone who was in a position to know. Why do folks become intrigued about the motives of who ratted on Muchachos? They cheated and if they did win, then it would have been an invalid win. So what if other corps did it too? They were also cheaters. But somehow its always Jersey! :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Guernsey Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 Thanks, Dan. Glad to see the Scouts back in Finals, btw. They really changed their approach this year. The show didn't have the impact that it usually does, but perhaps it helped them get higher scores. I prefer the impact over the higher scores. Maybe they can combine both next year. Yes, I was happy to see the boys back in finals where they belong. And, yea, I'd like to see that extra "kick" come back myself, but its a different activity today. Well, there is some rumbling about forming a Scout alumni corps for DCI in 2005 (2006 ?) in Madison. If it goes, I'm just too friggin old to be running around out there. In fact, I'd prefer to be in the stands and here the younger alumns blow the house down with "Slaughter on 10th Ave.," "God Bless the Child," "Ballet in Brass," using the Ray Baumgardt arrangments from the 70s .........That would be awesome! I hope its a go. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lucas97 Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 1) Not sure what you meaen by "biggest rival"? Cavaliers were hovering around 6th, 7th or 8th place. Muchachos were in the top three. What benefit would the Cavaliers have received besides moving up one place? By rivals, I mean the two corps really didn't like each other. At least that's how some friends of mine who were in Muchachos describe it. They hated the Cavaliers. Maybe it was a full-out corps thing, maybe it wasn't, but I got the impression that they were really intense rivals in the emotional sense. So if that stands to reason, the Cavaliers would benefit by sticking it to the Muchachos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Milano Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 IF there was a rivalry between the Muchachos and the Cavaliers, it was certainly a one-sided "hatred." I marched in the Cavaliers in the years preceding Muchachos disqualification, and I was on the Cavies management team the year "we" turned them in for marching overage members (it was an interesting meeting we had looking at the birth certificate, trying to decide what to do . . .) Our corps had NO ill will toward Muchachos. In fact, in 1974 we couldn't watch the Muchachos show often enough. We loved those guys. Totally ballsy show. Great style and swagger. Everything we had been back in the 60's. No jealousy on our parts. Heck, we were just happy to be back in the "dance" that year. Prior to 1974 neither Muchachos or Cavies were particularly competitive in the previous two or three years, we rarely saw them at any shows on the east coast, and I can't recall having any occasion to have spent any time with them. So, no reason to have any "rivalry" from our end. Like a lot of other east coast corps full of Italians and Greeks (hairy ol' basta r d s! :) ) , they certainly looked "old" to us. But in 1973 and 1974 EVERYONE looked old to the Cavaliers. We were a very young corps back then. Nope, we did not disqualify the Muchachos because of any particular rivalry with them. We were aware of a number of corps who were becoming more and more flagrant with their overage members. We had spoken to DCI and were told "bring us proof" or quit whining. It was the idealistic nature of our founder, Don Warren, that drove us to pursue the overage "thing." It wasn't specifically because we wanted to get rid of some corps above us, just so we could move up in the ranks. But that obviously was part of the reason - only in that the blatant disregard for the overage rules was making it unreasonably hard for corps who were abiding by the rules. It IS a competive activity, afterall. Mainly, however, our Founder, Don Warren, is about as straight an arrow as you'll ever find (I know, I know, sounds funny calling anyone associated with the Cavies "straight" - just thought I'd say it before all the smart ###es did ^0^ ). Muchachos simply "happened" to be the first corps we got definitive proof on. If it had been Kilts, Des Plaines, 27th Lancers, Anaheim, whomever, we would have done the same thing. It had NOTHING to do with Muchachos, and really NOTHING to do with the fact that they were a top three corps in '75, and a possible champion contender. We had a guy in our corps who had marched with an east coast corps the year before, and he personally knew that a member of Muchachos (the rototom player) was well overage. He was also "fairly certain" that there were several other overage members in Muchachos. Thus, they became our object of investigation. We did our homework, secured the proof on the rototom player and nailed 'em. Simple as that. It had NOTHING to do with the Troopers. It almost had something to do with the Blue Stars, who we also were told had an overage member. We investigated them first and thought we had "proof." It turned out to be untrue. So, had we been right about that one, they would have been the first one's to get disqualified, not Muchachos. Again, it was nothing "personal" against the Muchachos. I can tell you that we agonized about the whole thing in our staff meetings. We knew that many innocent kids in the Muchachos were about to go through h e ll, for no fault of their own. We were concerned, however, about the number of apparently overage members in the Muchachos. We felt very comfortable we were NOT dealing with one "accidental" case, or one "sneaky" member. This was, in our minds, clear disregard on the part of their management. Whether that is true or not, you'd have to ask the adults responsible for what was going on with the Muchachos back then. If they were ignoring things on purpose - THEY caused all the subsequent pain, NOT the Cavaliers. I'll go to my grave, having spoken personally to former Muchachos (whose names I won't divulge, as much as that is gonna' p is s some of you off!) knowing there were at least a dozen or more overage members in that 1975 corps. We did the right thing . . . P.S. Muchachos did NOT win pre-lims. They were more than a point below Madison. In fact they were in third place. Sorry to ruin the myth . . . P.P.S. Still my third favorite show of all time (behind '74 SCV and '74 Anaheim). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiBoyinLA Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 (1) The Muchachos' prelims scores were never tabulated. (2) Don Pesceone himself collected each of the individual judges' sheets before they could be tabulated. Where did they go? Only Don knows. (3) The judges never got together themselves to compare their scores for the night to determine where Muchachos "would have placed." This was recounted to me several years ago by one of the actual judges from that night. This person is a legend in the activity who I have absolutely no reason to doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Milano Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Don Angelica told me otherwise. He would also have been in a "position to know." It also squares with the scores Muchachos were getting leading up to that show. It's not that big a secret, and not that big a deal. Who would have cared what their score was. The only people who try to keep alive the "myth" that NO ONE KNOWS THE MUCHACHOS SCORE are those who want others to believe that the Muchachos may have won. You got bad information, whether they know it or not. Does anyone think that if the Muchachos would have been a ninth place corps that year, that the myth of their "secret score" would have endured this long? Notice how we never hear much about the Crossmen's disqualification. I guess they were the third corps to be caught, so it became old news by then. Yet, almost 30 years later, even though some of us were THERE as it was all happening, we still have to debate the conspiracy theorists who won't let this poor dead horse die (not you ChiBoyinLA - I know you well enough to trust the intentions of your post). They marched an overage member, got caught, had a great corps that year, didn't win prelims, it was all very sad, then life went on. I really am sorry for the innocent victims. But, Madison was the best corps that year. They deserved to be remembered more than the Muchachos . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiBoyinLA Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Interesting that only dead people (Pesceone, Angelica) are the ones who "knew" the Muchachos' score. ;-) I have faith in my source, she has no reason to be evasive (big hint). I agree with everything else you say, Paul. But I think this is destined to always be a drum corps urban legend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerriDitt57 Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Almost 30 years later, the controversy lives on. .......... Madison was ###### in '75. NO doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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