BigW

Now you mention, that, reading up on it, it was extremely weird. Then again, IIRC for some reason (Health and age?) he decided not to run for it and take his chances?

The culture was there before Hop and outside Cadets. I'll testify to it. And it's lurking at the HS level and rears its ugly head more often than I care to recount. There were many times at work when I was actively seeking a HS Band Director job when friends came to me with a newspaper clipping or a note telling me of an arrest and job opening. Sad.

Oh, When I was an interim HS Concert band director, I scrapped "Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral", in part because it didn't fit the personality of the band, and also because it was Wagner.

With as many corps that have folded over the past 45 years, My guess is that it's possible that the majority of former performers on DCP are in this situation.

Jay can punch his ticker where he desires and how. That being said, he's not getting any younger. Tom Aungst looks a LOT better than I do, but he's older than me (I'm 61) but he shows no signs of slowing down. My cap is tipped.

Things were more about pathing rather than well-defined subsets, which is why drill transitions are so much cleaner now.

The same tarnish effect also applies to Stan Kenton.

There's a lot of pain when your corps folds. I know this personally. But my anger is directed at those individuals who committed the malfeasance that killed it. And, the enabling that went on. My Mom asked me why it was all happening, and I told her, "People were willing to go along and ignore all of the red flags because the corps was gunning for a championship and didn't care about the long-term future of the organization." On that tangent, What Keith discussed and what Brian Tuma discussed on another thread as well as SG recently: I've given a lot of thought about this. It's definitely the culture that exists and has existed. The activity is very result and win driven. Why are some of these people on board? They're perceived to get things done and that they're effective staff members, and there's an attitude with some people that to make an Omelet, well, a few eggs are broken, and well, those broken eggs aren't really corps material. There's also a very in house Good ole Boys' network in place. "Oh, X has a problem, well we can keep X under control here and they're great staff people, we'll give them another chance with our corps. We can keep an eye on them." Why? they figure they can win with this individual on staff or as a performer, just keep a lid on it. People who turtle up about the dark secrets or shun those who speak up for fear it'll wreck their corps are playing into the hands of the abusers and enabling them. It's one of the tools of their trade. "Don't say anything or you'll be blamed when the corps gets sued and goes under." To me, that's evil incarnate. One can't knuckle under to that mindset. Lord, I've got my dander up. And everything in the second paragraph has happened somewhere. Some of it, I've seen personally. You want to turn your back from it, shame on you. This (insert colorful noun here) has to stop.

Indeed. And I can tell you prosecutors want to make absolutely certain that they don't go in half cocked against an abuser Why? They do NOT want to fail and inoculate someone like that from further prosecution. It was a serious concern in the Sandusky case and was why they made sure they built a very strong and ironclad case before they moved.

It was kind of a moot point. SCV was exciting, but BD was so tight and so "on" it didn't matter. I knew who won after BD's performance, it was obvious.

I was in the audience at 1982 Finals, Sam. The crowd was so bananas there was no way in God's name SCV could have heard a thing on the field. I couldn't hear anything in the stands and my ears were ringing.

Reaching out to Dr. Tim Ochran would be useful regarding the development of the Dot Books. He was on the ground floor of that development, though again, I have no clue as to contact.

I know what I wanted to do but School Administrators never valued the Corps experience on my resume and hired some real "interesting" folks and their cronies a lot of the time instead.

Did you read about one of my former students who marched Cadets calling them "Spanish Gangsters" on the thread? I hope to God you get a giggle from that!

Agreed, if someone really had the plan and means to start a corps, they're better off creating their own brand for these exact reasons.

Honesty and transparency is something I was raised to have and live by. The total lack of that at one point killed my corps. This stuff has to stop. I'd add more but I have to eat/meds and get to work. A lot of things I experienced as a 16 year old kid who wanted nothing more than to play my axx off in a Corps have caused me to reflect on all of this, let me tell you. Later on that.

It's not going to surprise me at all if more of this starts coming out. And it shouldn't shock and surprise anyone else if it happens.

In this case, it appears whether anyone likes it or not that it was the only solution. I think it's a rather stark and ugly wake-up call for everyone who's left to get things together ethically.

Now you mentioned that I taught someone who played Mello for several years there in the 90's. The experience changed him, but I'm not sure of it was for the better in some ways. Comments about the "Spanish Gangsters" all the time (BD)... other comments I saw them make on YT in similar veins about BD... I sure as Hades didn't teach him that, who did? My guess is GH. They ended up aging out with Crown because in that YEA period they desperately needed the right body on Mello, even though they were done. Then they became another one of at least three people I know that worked for YEA for a year and ran. (Jeff also knows one of those three I know)... I don't know what to think about that aspect of the Cadets. Most I personally know aren't that way at all, period. They're gracious individuals. A couple are rather full of themselves like that. As for the end of the corps, it's like a Greek tragedy. It took 40 years, but alleged disgusting behaviors caught up to the organization. I was hopeful that the move to Erie under different leadership would build in a few years into something very special for the activity as a whole. I can't say I'm sad, surprised, or shocked. I'm just thinking, this is what can happen when someone engages in unethical behavior and wrecks an organization in spite of any good people who were involved.

Pete would be a definite go-to guy. I have no idea how to reach out to Mel Stratton, but he'd also be another very knowledgeable person concerning the visual art in this period.

The hunch here is you're right. I don't know if anyone's ever did a statistical analysis of, say, that if Crown's percussions scores would be more in line with their other captions, what difference might that have made at Finals. Even though Effect has a lot of weight, if there are no real large gaps and spreads and other captions have them...

Nothing should be a sole determining factor. Definitely agreed. With certain groups- it's a Seperator, especially at the sharp end of the stick in DCI. That whole thing can also be risky. Trying to set new standards can also fail in a really miserable way, This I Believe.

I swear that there were repeated statements that innovation was to be taken under heavy consideration in the evaluation. To hit the top box, there had to be State of the Art, cutting edge elements in the program. I've been thinking about that whole concept and how it's affected the activity as a whole in one way, but work calls.

There was some serious pushback and struggles on those issues, for those not familiar. It's even beyond the music versus visual tussle when it comes to the inspections. I know the one story told to me from one of the posters on this thread about the AL people trying to deduct over haircuts worn by guys on currently active service in the Army- if their hair length was passing muster by the actual army... what's the beef? Seen other posters who went through it feeling the deductions were rather arbitrary and smacked of favoritism. Then you had the issue with the rules where all music had to be performed within a specific range of beats per minute or get penalized. The problem was that a lot of the arrangers wanted to actually try and create more musical performances. It's no wonder that the Senior/All-Age community split from the Legion, and that the Combine/DCI split from the VFW. I know there were other more serious issues at hand but things like that pushed the split. Even in the 50s and 60s, people were trying to expand musical boundaries and conventions in the activity. Whether some folks like it or not, it's been an institutional progression because of that ethos. I've been meaning to bring this up as well, and Jeff might have answers and clarification: IIRC when DCI released the new placemats pre-covid, they had them up for public viewing, and I remember the one very strong implication on those placemats was that innovation was to be rewarded as a priority. If someone was pushing the envelope, coming up with new ideas, and it was good material, it was to be rewarded higher than someone less innovative. If the judge is being asked to do that- there you go.

True. Bad playing didn't help. Nope, nope nope. In one area near us, folks think that they need to play like their state's university with 350 members droning away when they have 25-60 kids... You know the rubrics. Droning Loud and Constant ain't gonna generate effect on any sheet I know of. Might get a 90k home football crowd jacked up... but a different situation.