Tekneek

Somehow I got the impression that Bill was not that involved with the group anymore. He always said once they were entirely self-sufficient he wouldn't be around much.

I had not thought about this until yesterday. My wishful thinking involved SCV and BD getting on trains/planes and starting out in the east and working their way west with everyone else.

The box office for that particular theater probably knows. Give them a call.

Something else. That is all that is taken into consideration. We're not talking about a drum corps equivalent of the "BCS formula" here. The criteria is clear and I'm sure all the corps knew what it would be before tour. Mandarins may beat Southwind, but they did not generate a score average high enough to be seeded ahead of them for Quarterfinals. Perhaps they should have gone to more shows. This is only bad for people who want to see the Cinecast. People going to Quarters, Semis, and Finals will see Mandarins twice (if they come in 17th on Thursday) and only see Southwind once. That's all that likely matters to the corps and its members as well.

It's hard to lose points for something that isn't even on the sheets, I suppose. Not that I want a category for it though, because then everybody would have to do it.

Let's put this on t-shirts.

No way am I going to try scores... :) This is what I think the placements will be: 12 - Spirit 11 - Glassmen 10 - Scouts 9 - Boston 8 - Crown 7 - BK 6 - SCV 5 - Bluecoats 4 - Cadets 3 - Phantom 2 - BD 1 - Cavaliers Now, what do I (trying to be reasonable) hope will happen? 12 - Glassmen 11 - Spirit 10 - Scouts 9 - Crown 8 - Boston 7 - BK 6 - SCV 5 - Cadets 4 - Bluecoats 3 - BD 2 - Phantom 1 - Cavaliers

I hope the staff does care. It is part of their job. I hope the current marching members aren't attached to the scores, because that isn't their job. Part of being a fan IS caring about the scores and talking about them. Would you ever tell a fan of an 0-16 football team that they shouldn't care about wins and losses as long as they had a good time watching the team? How long would that fly? If scores didn't matter, they wouldn't have them. Since they do, it is something to be discussed. I see the spread between Cavies and BD is the same as it was in Atlanta. Phantom seemingly has third all to themselves. Cadets have been setup now to finish ahead of Bluecoats in Madison, although I have a hard time personally agreeing with that. SCV looks to be alone in sixth. Crown, BK, and Boston could still see some movement. I wouldn't be surprised if Madison, Glassmen, and Spirit come in 10-12 respectively all 3 nights at Championships. At least there is some drama at the top and a chance for some movement around. I think the top 12 is already set. Certainly the Colts appear to be the only corps with a chance to sneak in.

I am going to do some analysis to see if the movement in score from semifinals to finals was much more in 1988 than usual. Regardless of placement changes, the scores SEEM to have moved much more than they usually do just by glancing at it.

Ok. I am prepared to eat it a little bit, because I can agree that those lines were/are tremendous.

I love this idea. A total recap shows up on the big screen BEFORE the next corps starts up. That way everybody knows the numbers. The technology is there for each judge to enter his numbers into a wireless device right now and let a master system tally it up.

So, how many drumlines have demonstrated excellence? One?

I think he legitimately just wanted to understand. There have been years when I was very entertained by corps that didn't make finals. Sometimes finding them more entertaining than the champion. So, for entertainment, it has nothing to do with the scores. However, sometimes it does seem that some corps are better than others but are not getting the points. It can be a source of frustration or confusion, even if it doesn't change the entertainment value of the production for me.

You've just explained the problem with the "build-up" system of judging. It is very subjective and every judge probably knows what each corps has been scoring over the past week before that corps takes the field. A while back some judge actually dropped his cheat sheet on the field, which created a bit of a firestorm when a guard member of a corps picked it up. No judge wants to be the guy who got the placements all wrong compared to the other judges out there. It may be that culture that is the real problem. It's how corps are able to ride on reputation and gives people ammo to challenge the system.

I thought it was based on design AND execution. As in, I thought the design of the show (drill design, music composition, guard routine, etc) tended to set your potential points and then execution determined whether you could meet that. That's why a perfectly clean corps with low demand would probably not win it all despite being cleaner than everyone else.

Where was he with this question when Cadets got a perfect drum score though you could see problems caught clearly on the video? That line was the best on the field that night, IMO, but they were not perfect.

As long as I have been following the activity, they have been having major regionals with small shows filling in the gaps. I know from 1990-1992 and in 1994, I was driving out of town for regionals in Birmingham or Nashville.

Indeed. I can see the virtue in building up slowly, rather than throwing everybody into the deep end and having a really rough summer.

As a spectator, it is an important part of the event and I hate not having one. When I marched, I always had a good time but it was fun to have it called it off now and then. I'm not sure I would enjoy rarely getting to do it. I wouldn't enjoy not getting to play off the field either. I thought it was one last chance to give something to the fans before leaving and they always seemed to enjoy it.

Was that because of weather? I cannot remember if we had one in 1993 or not. When I think of DCI East from that year, just about all I can remember is Prelims.

I wish each corps would play a cadence off of the field after their show. I do wish retreat was still the way it used to be, with the entire corps out there on most nights. I wish each corps then played off of the field. I wish the winner of each show would play an encore. That's the sort of traditional stuff that I wish would make a comeback. It is those things that helped get me really hooked into the activity and the way things have changed really sucks some of the enjoyment out of it for me.

The first I saw was in July of 1989. Southwind, Florida Wave, Crossmen, Suncoast Sound, Spirit of Atlanta, and Cadets of Bergen County were there. Spirit came in second to Cadets that day, beating both Crossmen and Suncoast who would end up in Finals with Spirit on the outside by the end of the season. I was hooked as a fan then, but didn't even consider marching until a couple of years later.

I think the corps is suffering from some design issues that reflect more on staff than the members themselves. This show was only going to take them so far, and finals was not going to be its destination.

For me, it isn't about correcting them. It's about wondering why they didn't ask a single person in an authority position and then report it accurately. It's not like it would be that difficult to get it 100% accurate.

Calling them a high school drum corps is only legitimate if they have found out that the vast majority of the membership is actually in high school (and even then the term is still questionable). In my mind, not doing your homework for a news story is a big deal. If it is worth going out there to film the corps and put it on TV, it is worth talking to someone in charge there and making sure the 'copy' you are running with is accurate. It would make me wonder how many other times you are just getting whatever the reporter 'thinks' they are looking at. Would they let someone refer to the Pittsburgh Steelers as a highschool football team just because they were practicing on a highschool football field and they sent a reporter who knew nothing about it to cover them? Of course not. It is only because they expect most of their audience to be ignorant that they accepted the reporter being ignorant as well. It's shoddy coverage and it reveals how desperate the activity is for any coverage that it is accepted without complaint.