ACM

Great for them! Looks like they have picked up alot of Spartans instructional talent...it will be very interesting to see what comes out of Burlington this year!

I did a one count turn around in 02 and nailed the field visual judge who was right behind me

Isnt there a pizza place right across the street from Camp Randall? I remember going there my rookie year, I dont know the name of it but it was pretty good. For anyone else who is marching...there is always that McDonalds right behind the bus parking lot....to this day that place still had the cheapest McDonald's food I had ever eaten.

Though im breaking the rules myself at the moment, as a member of Spartans I do want to clarify a previously made statement. At no point were we told that Thursday night was the most important performance of the year. It was never said by anybody and it was never assumed that we would win Saturday either...if it was we woudlnt have woken up at 5:30 on Saturday morning to practice before Grand Finals. East Coast won because they performed better than us on Saturday and there is no argument about it.....the scores reflect the truth of Saturday. If Acecannon is actually a member of Spartans and honestly beleive what he or she said.......than they completly missed the point of belonging to the organization.

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I dont understand the gimmick comments. I felt this show was designed to be patriotic in nature....the way drum corps was and should be. I cried after seeing that show the first time.

My point is when have you ever seen a corps do better simply because it was Bb? Bb fare better because all of the top 12 are in Bb....nothing to do with the key of the horn...but the top 12 remains faily constant every year. There has not been enough direct competition for you to say that Bb groups fare better than those in G. Beyond that, carefully read what I said before you accuse me of being pyschic, I never said that the cadets having vocals in their show would force anything on anybody....personally I would prefer that if a group is going to sing, that it be done professionally.........what I DID say was that Hopkins better not come off of this season and try having a voice judge or anything of that nature added to DCI policy...because doing THAT would force a change on the rest of DCI. Examples of him trying this include: Amps, Non member doing soundboard, saxophones, etc. Please read very carefully what I write before attacking in a personal way with comments like "im glad they keep you so informed" and other such things, I certainly did not do anything of the like to you.

How many comparisons can you draw? There was very little time for the top three to compete against each other in different keys....in fact Im not even sure that they did. And I will point out the 2004 div II champions are still in G bugles...beating almost every other Div II corps that was in Bb. Myself and others just really do not want to see Drum Corps turn into marching band. Hopkin's has stated in the past he thinks that that is the direction that the activity should take. I dont want to watch the Cadets or Santa Clara or BD and think at any point that I might be watching Lassiter High School. As I said, if Cadets want to sing...fine......as long as Hopkins leaves the rest of DCI out of it. (Given his track record...I doubt he will)

Find a competitive (top 12) Div I corps still playing G Bugles.......A group wanted a change to Bb, rule proposal passed, and within 2 years all of the top 12 were Bb.....they all had to change if they wanted to remain competitive.

My problem is that whenever Hopkins gets some crazy idea to "innovate" his corps, he consistently seeks to change DCI policy so as to allow his innovation to take place. In effect, forcing a drastic change in the nature of the activity on every other drum corps in the country. He has already done this once when Amps were passed, and has already tried other times since then (saxophones, etc). If Hopkins wants to innovate his corps then fine, but for once....he better leave DCI policy out of it because if I see a rule proposal next year for a voice judge or something like that, Im going to be real pis*ed

My corps DCI provided housing in 03 was also the worst one I have ever had. They sent us to this really dirty school and put us in a practice wrestling room with this nasty wrestling mat on the floor and there were bugs EVERYWHERE...we only stayed there two days before our corps found its own housing site after finding that one so awful. It was by far the nastiest, most disgusting housing site I have ever stayed at.

I was and still am an Alto Sax player, but I wanted to march drum corps so Spartans taught me the baritone last November. My band director found out, so I played baritone this season in marching band, now he is making me play it for concert band....I do want to play sax for concert band though. Of course, I would still be playing baritone again this year with Spartans! I seem to be the minority out of the very large list of sax-brass converts who still actually plays sax though :)