wjt4

I think everyone that is above the age of 40 has seen this activity change or evolve over the years and have seen dozens of corps fold as well. I admit that I am a product of the 70's/80's and early 90's. I also marched and I taught for over 15 years. DCI and the member staffs NEED to implement some guidelines so that they can save the activity. Scale back things. Go back to 128 marchers, maybe only one tour, demand uniforms that corps have to keep for a minimum of 5 years, no props, no amplification, no friggin' Sousaphones, saxophones, violins, cellos, and trombones on the field. Just talking off the top of my head. Shorter shows? Maybe expenditure caps to create more parity? Time practice caps? Staffing caps? How about requiring a concert number where there is NO drill. The current product just seems so over the top that it is hard to watch. It's become less about the music and more about the visual production. I used to really look forward to going to drum corps shows. I don't anymore. I don't even enjoy watching the corps I marched with and that makes me sad. I love this activity but really think we're headed to extinction if the powers that be don't make some drastic changes/measures. The senior corps activity is practically dead already. I hope we can fix this problem and that it's not too late.

Marion Cadets had the "Jets" feeder corps in the early to mid seventies. I think the last year for the Jets was '77 and then all of the Jets were moved up in the Marion Cadets in '78. Kept the Marion Cadets from "folding" is my recollection. Avg. age of the Jets in '76 couldn't have been more than 12.

I was disappointed last night with the announcing system as well. Announcing the caption winners did a little bit of the "mystery" out of the last three placement awards. We all knew at that point who was going to win. I also don't like the way the scores are averaged all season long and you can follow all of the corps progress throughout the season up until Finals night on the DCI website. To me it's the same deal, it just took the fun out of things. We're all just going to watch the finals because it's the last night of the season. The only real surprise last night was Phantom and Blue Stars switching spots, and I wasn't that surprised. I don't know, it's been a long time since I have been to finals and I am also much older now. Finals just didn't have the intrigue to me that it used to. When you know or expect the outcome, it's not as interesting I guess. Wjt4