I marched 79, 80, and 81 Spirit and 82 Blue Devils. The tic system was still in place when I marched Spirit and also in 1982. In 1982, we beat Madison's old hornline score that year that had been set in 1975 before finals and had a record horn score with only three tics at finals. If I am not mistaken, the horn caption was the first to do away with the tic system. I know scoring a 95.25 as we did in 1982 at finals with the tic system still in place was what we shot for all winter and season long. The execution judges sometimes varied between sides and within captions, however, I can tell you as a horn line member and marcher, it gave us a sense of accountability and I know we felt we had control. In Spirit, one of our marching instructors told us to get the first 30 seconds of the show flawless and the execution judges will go easier on us. In BD we were told the same thing. We worked to get the first 30 seconds flawless and both times we saw the numbers go up.