O.P.

Bingo

That doesn't solve the problem. Keep your reviews coming and let the debate continue. People need to hear that not all people share their view on their favorite corps. Too many people believe there is an absolute truth out there somewhere, often labeling good opinions as "politics" or "getting screwed." Pity it is that more folks don't embrace the discussion and learn to debate in a healthy, educating manner. Constructive criticism should be healthy for us all in this activity, and we just might benefit from it in the long run.

I don't think it was a place where there was less chance of other corps members falling. It was more that he was just lucky that his dot at that point in the drill had him on the far end of Side 2. Had he been in the mess in the middle when he fell, this situation would've been a lot worse. IIRC, this happened in that really complicated drill on the isolated hits where the corps is running their ###3$ off towards the middle with gates and all kinds of amazing craziness. One clarification: It was side #1. (Facing the field, left of the 50) While fortunate to be at the end out on the 15 -20 yard line, the member did his best to emerge from the line and try to get off the field. Unfortunately, there was only one person on the sideline as it was happening, a woman in black dress (I assumed an instructor) who could come to his aid. She did as quickly as she could, but as the member tried to limp to her, it was apparent to everyone in the stadium that his leg was broken badly. The woman tried to help but appeared too weak to hold his full weight on her shoulder and help him off the field, and I suspect he was in significant enough pain that he was limited in movement. Eventually someone else came out to help them both off the field. I doubt very much any other the members knew there was an injured member other that the few around him, let alone the severity as it was happening. How many of us have seen people go down during a performance? An SCV horn player fell earlier in the night and he got up and back in position quickly. There was also a noticably warmer applause for Crown at the conclusion of the performance in part yes, for their outstanding season, but also I felt IMO for the young man and the courage he showed during his injury. I read that he is doing well, and like others would be glad to contribute to his 2011 season. In no small way, his efforts were the embodiment of how hard drum corps kids are willing to work for this activity and the obstacles they overcome. Just for him, they were more serious than any I have ever witnessed and on our largest stage. I wish him a quick and full recovery.

Jim Prior to the victory run, a gentleman at the top of the first level wearing a cowboy hat, stood up and began to cite the corps championship years in a long loud voice. Most people just stopped and turned and listened. All I could think of was the ending of "Dances with Wolves" when the Brave sits on his horse atop a canyon wall and repeats that Dances with Wolves is his friend. It had that same poignant moment, solemn, respectful and proud.

Interesting that of the top 5, 3 of them were special for barely beating the Blue Devils, i.e., the Cadets, Phantom and Madison shows. So I find it intersting that the most successful corps is not mentioned among the top 5. Makes you think the activity sees BD not so much as the great champion that they are, but as a standard setter for other corps to evaluate themselves against and achieve greatness. For that reason, I do not see how you can leave out 76 BD. That show changed the activity in many categories, e.g., Brass performance, Brass book, musical book, visual design, effect, and overall standards of excellence so much so that many poeple felt they were un beatable from 76 through 82 in which they won 5 in 7 years. In fact, I remember distinctly a friend saying to me in the Spring of 79, "isn't it interesting that everyone thinks the corps to beat this year is the Blue Devils and they didn't even win last year?" The truth is that since the mid 70's, every corps that rises to the top, does so by surpassing the Blue Devils in the game, making it their high point in the organizations history and rightfully so. The Cadets and Cavie corps were historical in their runs. But shouldnt the Blue Devils get credit for advancing the activity in this way, for influencing drum corps?

Interesting thoughts, but the fact is that today's sheets are a deliberate attempt to change the judging system to allow corps like 27th a better chance at winning. The efficient performances of the west coast corps where great and exciting in their own way, but 27th had people standing up for the sheer thrill of their performance. I can remember one show that SCV beat 27th and the crowd never stood up except at the end in repsectful admisration, but the crowd lept to their feet six or seven times during 27th. SCV won by 2 points. DCI was smart enough to realize that they needed to encourage less execution and more excitement and 27th's role in that is as significant as any corps in history.

Larry Dastrup, Blue Devils could play with anyone. Check out State of the Art.

Of the 37 Championships..., 12 were decided convincingly by a point or better, with the greatest spread being SCV in 73 of 2.5. Blue Devils own 6 of these 12, and 4 of their victories are in the top six of all time. 13 were decided with solid wins of less than a point but greater than .5. BD owns 5 of these; Cadets, 4. The remaining 12 were won by a narrow margin 0f .4 or less. SCV owns 4 of these; Cadets, 3

82 saw two vast improvements for the BD crew. The drum line moving up to 3rd place, and the dominating marching execution to a degree that despite coming in 2nd in GE (mostly from the guard) and 3rd in Visual analysis, you still won the High visual trophy (which hangs in my office at home given to me by Mike Moxley after finals.)

Most appreciated.... it was the best year and it was a joy.

And tonight we have another strong candidate for corps director telling us why he should lead the nation's corps. MLK would be proud, I think, tonight, but then men such as him often surprise us with their reactions when we presume to undersand how they think. Another failing of ours. Tonight Ironlips, I hope you hear it again, that call to inspire, that vision for our collective path, and that wisdom in which we can believe. Enjoy that you are lucky to witness it twice in your lifetime....

27th Lancers: 1975 Anaheim Kingsmen: 1972 Blue Devils: 1982 Blue Knights: Blue Stars: Bluecoats: Boston Crusaders: 1966 Bridgemen: 1980 Cadets: 1984 Carolina Crown: Cavaliers: 2006 Crossmen: Glassmen: 1982 Madison Scouts: 1975 Phantom Regiment: 2008 Santa Clara Vanguard: 1974 Spirit: 1980 Star of Indiana: 1993 Suncoast Sound: Troopers:

Interesting stuff... Of the 37 Championships..., 12 were decided convincingly by a point or better, with the greatest spread being SCV in 73 of 2.5. Blue Devils own 6 of these 12, and 4 of their victories are in the top six of all time. 13 were decided with solid wins of less than a point but greater than .5. BD owns 5 of these; Cadets, 4. The remaining 12 were won by a narrow margin 0f .4 or less. SCV owns 4 of these; Cadets, 3

Oh, that's easy. Anytime I was able to shut you up from giving me a load of crap and lip. If I did that, I figured I had a good day and earned my keep.

Tony One of the "boys of 82." Look for my PM

Kevin Thanks for sharing that. I have always said I would put the 82 corps against any other corps in history, they were a special group of performers through and through from top to bottom. I have never seen a corps so talented and who became so focused on winning by being so good. It was always one of the goals of every show to make the competitors feel exactly as you did that night, and of course, Manning Bowl was the perfect venue for that corps. If it helps, they worked very hard from day one in January, and even after the January camp, when I thought, this was going to be a special corps, they kept surprising me, challenging the staff to make them better.

To Chris and Lee and the entire Renegades GOOD LUCK this weekend in Scranton!!!!!!

As an instructor.. My first year teaching the Blue Devils (1982) and at the Lynn Manning Bowl SHow (Boston my home town) two things happened. First, running up the stands to watch the performance, I run into the legendary Ed Denon who was judging that night and who taught me first in 1963 through 1971 and was a father figure, sees me, gives me a bear hug that only he could and says he heard I was teaching BD and was looking forward to the performance. And afer the performance I turned to him to seek approval (we were great that night) and he had tears in his eyes and said, "they're wonderful." This from a man who produced the brilliant Boston Crusader corps of the 1960s. That same night in critique, talking to Frank Morris and opening with the question, "So Frank what do you think?" he replies John, I gave you a 15! What do you mean what do I think?" And I say, "yea but where can we improve, talk to me: and he says, "Listen, I don't believe in giving 15s. In fact, I tried for the last two minutes of the show to get you in to the 14s and I couldn't do it, your corps wouldn't let me. There were no ticks out there. I have never seen anything like it" And I was back in Boston. Pretty good night for me.

I see your point but his was that this was probably a highly skilled, talented performer who missed the timing of the move but that the effect was still achieved. Rather than view it through the eyes of a drill sargent as our history would suggest, the intent is to view it as an artistic act with allowances. Some would suggest that perfect unison is by itself an effect, and that is true. But for the most part, the argument about the Bolshoi is that it is the choreography that is the effect and we should reward it if it achieved and not penalize it for minor infractions.

The short answer is, yes they were more forgiving. Some of the smaller corps could easily be written off the sheet. Depending on the year, you started with a 20, or 17, which is 200 or 170 ticks in a show. With judging for all but the last part of the show (remember "the gun" signaling tick judges off the field?) hat averages out to about 15-20 ticks per minute which is almost as fast as you can write. Plus judges could assessa mutliple tick if the error was so severe it encompassed a large group of people, e.g., a company front of 60 horns could be judged from a dress perspective (and usually was) and they could assess it as a number of 2 or 3 of I remember correctly.

Actually I was speaking of 84BDsop...

I love this topic and can't resist weighing in. And since I haven't read every previous posting here, if I fail to mention something written above, my apologies. First, a qualifier. I taught and won marching with the Blue Devils in the 80's and 90's. I am a product of the 60's and 70's and grew up learning the tick system and was obvioulsy greatly influenced by it in my teaching career. So let that shape the thinking of those who read this. And, for the record, a little history about "ticks." The tick system was always a subjective evaluation. A judge did not go out and tick everything he/she saw for an objective evaluation because, frankly that was an impossible task. You would have to assign a judge to every perfromer for a completely impartial evaluation. Instead, a judge was required to "sample" performances and using this standard, rank and rate the corps marching performance. Yes, things like horn angles, feet, starts and stops, interval, dress, individual technique were all judged. To complicate things there were two judges (in the symetrical days of side 1 and side 2) to make sure an average was used to place the corps and lessen the impact a single judge could have on an overall score. As instructors, we used to video tape judges and then listen to their tapes while watching their evaluation on tape to get a sense of their standards. One of the issues we dealt with BITD was that the opinion of the "upstairs" judge conflicting with the "downstairs" judge. And in support of that, I used to argue with the design teams over which section should be worked in practice because what was poorly executed from an effect standpoint was different from an execution standpoint. In the end, since all corps suffered this malady, the DCI community decided (under Don Angelica's guidance --see other thread on that) to move away from ticks so that corps would be more daring in their effects design without penalty and thus more appealing to more people. I distinctly remember Angelica saying that no one clapped any less when the Bolshoi Ballet performed because one ballerina was off slightly, nor was she any less of a performer, so why does drum corps thinks she should be? Now, I would argue that the 82 Blue Devils were the cleanest thing I ever saw on a filed, but my prejudice is obvious. And some will argue it would be one of the Phantom shows in the 70's or 80's since they had so many clean corps then. Others would argue well it would be the 1980 27th Lancers, and it would be a good argument. But that another time and place to discuss. But all of these corps and some not mentioned were exceedingly cleaner under the tick system than today's corps. There is no doubt, in my mind, at least. But then, these were championship caliber corps and they marched shows that were designed to be clean. We had shorter strides, tighter sets, and a need to practice individual technique which we all did daily. But we still must recognize the great demand that corps place on themselves today and yet still perfrom with great percision and accuracy and would score well in any era. Particularly the championship corps. The Cavaliers motif of boxes expanding, contracting and rotating is the most exacting of execution manuveurs the activity has ever seen in any era and yet they do it as well as I have seen it done. The Cadets, too when they are of a championship caliber perform impressively. For me the bottom line is that the championship corps always do things well and it is not different today than yesteryear. Today's corps though have taken the activity to another level of performance in all facets. They could only have done this by being freed from the "tick" system. Yes, shows are "dirtier" as a whole than before but they are much more effective as a whole as well. And corps practice differently, often having marching people upstairs cleaning the drill. And while I do sympathize with the one gentleman who suggested we honor our past with cleaner drills, I love the guy upsatirs cleaning because frankly that is the perspective that is important. (not easy for me to admit). Remember, people like Todd Ryan of BD who are products like me, still teach these basic tennants of excellence to the kids that perform today and the intent is to be clean and effective, just like we did when we marched. I have no doubt Mr. Ryan is an honorable keeper of that flame and is honorably passing the torch to the next generation who will carry on the traditions of our activity with the same sense in which he received it.

I can confirm this....

..only to drag the buck you shot from your bedroom window into your house. And then we wont see you till Spring.

Not sure of your point but the the drill was ground breaking and the talk of the activity among instructors and judges at the highest levels during the May and June period. Pete Emmons was encouraged by Angelica to seek such paradign shifts in drill concepts, many of which were considered sacrosanct and balshemy were you to go against them. Move a drum line off the 50? Have the horns so segmented and away from the drum line. Drummers marching formations?! It was a trying season, and Angelica insisted that SCV get it right and they were punished by the judges for the lack of performance standards that were expected, particularly from SCV who had won just two seasons previous. Granted Pete earned his place in the hall of fame for that year alone in my book, and he worked as hard as anyone I ever saw trying to execute and clean that drill. SO my intent is not to dimish what Pete's impact is to the activity. He is and always will be one of the giants of our industry. But the point is where do greats like Emmons, Moxley, Elvord, Zingali, Bruzali, Dorritie, Brubaker, etc get their inspiration? My answer is Angelica.