TeamOhio

I can agree with fsubone.....my HS bought 8 contras from BD in 2001, and ten seasons later, they are still going strong (with some help from a little solder and some TLC haha)

My HS band director that came my senior year marched Northern Aurora and Phantom in the 90's, so off and on in high school I would say that I was going to march but didn nothing about it. My freshmen year of college I met my now roommate who had just done his second summer with Glassmen and was auditioning for Phantom, so naturally, by association, I decided that I wanted to audition for Phantom the following year. Well, he had to go through 4 cuts before making their contra line, and seeing how I was a saxophonist music major that never played contra before, that was out for me in my mind. Not too much later I saw Madison's '06 show, and it snowballed from there as I started to watch more Scouts shows. I went to finals '08, and it was set. I auditioned for the contra line in '09 and made it, and aged out from there this past summer. Best decision of my life, I couldn't dream of marching anywhere else.

Not going to put a number to these because I just can't rank them(=and forgive me for my biases lol) -Madison 1995- Rotating company front to the end-Textbook example of how to get babies thrown. I can only imagine what it was like in person! -Phantom 2008- "I am Sparticus!"-I was there in person....... words can't describe the energy and emotion of that moment. -Cavaliers 2000- Diamond rotations at the end of the show- simply stunning visual moment, and one of my favorite hornlines. -Star 1993- Horns and drums blastissimo cluster that resolves to the big symphonic chord near the end- classic tension and release moment. Gives me goosbumps every time I watch it. -Madison 1975- "The Way We Were" push to the end- Just straight up classic drum corps right there. -Cadets 2005- All of Dancer in the Dark- simply amazing. -Vanguard 2009- The whole show-Probably the only drum corps show I could truly call beautiful. -Blue Devils 1997- The main soprano soloist is just ice cold the entire show. Amazing chops right there. -Bluecoats 2008- The Boxer hit- One of the greatest brass moments in DCI history IMO. -Madison 1998- Remembrance- My all time favorite drum corps chart. Could listen to it a million times and never get tired of it.

I saw a bit of Crown and Phantom on the 2005 ESPN broadcast, but didn't think too much of it (besides "What is a marching band doing on ESPN?" haha). Band director that came my senior year marched Phantom in the 90's, so I briefly got in to it, but nothing happened due to that. Eventually, a good friend of mine got me back into corps my freshmen year of college, started watching scouts videos, attended my first and only live show finals 2008, and managed to convince my college saxophone professor to let me play tuba all summer two years in a row, and the rest is history.

Being from Ohio, it was always cool to me to be announced as being from Madison since it was something different than I was used to, and it gave me a certain sense of connection and pride for a place that I would never have any reason to be connected to. It was also one of those things where all of the members were from different parts of the country, but for the summer we were in essence all "from Madison," and had that in common.