The Cadets at Quarterfinals

[Meaghatron]

half the crowd were acting like (quite bluntly) my nephew who is 11 and quite the trouble maker - many of this set were drinking beer or wearing a familar blue-colored t-shirt (or were in the feeder corps of a blue-colored finalist corps)

the other half of us - myself included - were either telling people to shut up or trying to ignore them and watch the show

I personally got annoyed - then watched the show.

The crowd (the entire day - not just then) were not very polite - talking, on cell phones, coming and going during corps, not much applause until SCV and Crown at all. They gave the corps polite semi-stand O's with golf clapping

I spoke to the folks around me afterward and the BD "mom" in front of me was pretty annoyed with the whole spectacle - "embarassed for her organization" was her statement (because she witnessed how some of the BD-clad folks had been acting)

It was bad.

That sucks. Sounds like the bandos from a local high school marching band that were sitting behind me in the theater. People should really learn manners.

[Daave]

That bothersome safety word, again.

"Won't someone please think of the children!" (Sorry, just channeled Maude Flanders there for a moment)

Allow me a strawman moment, please...

Ya know, there are young men and women in harm's way in places like Iraq and Afghanistan right now (many of which who are the same ages as the young men and women whose safety that was being looked out for last night) They live and breath safety everyday, so that they can see the next day.... I would wager a bet that they would have loved to have been on a field of manicured grass last night in southern California and not have to have worried about safety.

Perspective and what not, I suppose.

Not trying to make anything political... Just sayin'

And now, I can take my afternoon medication :)

[George]

George...someone commented about the beer on his blog. I never thought about it...you think that was a huge part of it? How much drinking was there going on?

I seen booing & drinking go hand-in-hand in the past

I didn't notice anyone falling-down-drunk last night - but there were a lot of beer-dringers among the boo-birds and hecklers

[Danpod]

I believe the Cadets will put on one of the finest performances in DCI history tonight.

They will step up big time.

I'm with you. This is definitely one of those "finest hour" situations for The Cadets.

[Tekneek]

I didn't notice anyone falling-down-drunk last night - but there were a lot of beer-dringers among the boo-birds and hecklers

Any idea how many beer drinkers weren't engaging in that, just to balance the story a little?

[jlbergin]

Does anybody happen to know why the 2 point penalty was removed. I would guess Hopkins argued for it with something about how it was DCI not doing their job in having the field lined properly that delayed the show not The Cadets... or something along those lines

Edited August 10, 2007 by jlbergin

[Fran Haring]

If an earlier corps director had squawked about it, fine. They would have had that option if they felt the hashes were too faint. The fact is....they chose NOT to. Of course, the field got worse and worse as each of the corps marched, so a few corps earlier than the Cadets the field would not have been as bad as it was when they came out.

Yes, the hashes should have been relined...No, they were not. George decided that for his corps...when they performed....he needed them to be made right, as indeed they should have been earlier.

I kinda felt the same way last night, viewing the show from my seat in a movie theater. One of my reactions basically was, "I can't believe one of the other corps' directors didn't make the same complaint earlier."

If you all will indulge me for a bit, I have a "been there done that" story to share:

In 1980, I marched with DCA's Sunrisers.... and were on the receiving end of one of the most bizarre incidents that has ever happened on a drum corps field, at DCA Finals that year.

For those not familiar with the story, we basically were made to wait, in our starting position, as DCA officials tried to clear the field of pigeons that had been released by the corps competing before us.... the Westshoremen. Westshore released the birds as part of their finale. One problem: The birds didn't fly away, and just sat and/or walked around on the field.

So there we were.... getting geared up for our Finals performance.... and were forced to wait, and wait, and wait some more. Our management threatened to pull us off the field so we could regroup.... and we were then told we would get a penalty if we did so.

Think about that statement for a minute:

WE were going to get a penalty for something that WE had NOTHING to do with. There was no talk whatsoever, at the time, of the Westshoremen receiving a delay-of-show penalty. In fact, a top DCA official rejected that possibility out of hand. We, instead, were told we would get a penalty for something we didn't cause.

Bottom line: we stayed put....... we were REALLY ticked off, but we felt we could nothing to change anything. So we eventually did our Finals performance, and did the best we could.....after basically having our pre-show "hype" deflated, for all intents and purposes, by the three-ring circus surrounding us.

Several years later, that same DCA official told us that he had made a mistake.... that yes, the offending corps SHOULD have received a penalty, and we should have been given time to regroup.

So I can empathize, at least to some degree, with George Hopkins and The Cadets. He made a tough call, but the right one, IMO.

And I'll tip my hat to DCI for sorting out the situation as quickly as possible, rather than issuing a worthless "apology" two years from now.

Fran

[bradrick]

From George Hopkin's blog

"If you are reading ... I hope you will cheer wildly for the Cadets.

These kids had a tough time last night ... and I would think they wonder what is in store?

More verbal abuse? More people screaming over the corps? More unkindness?

I am sorry to say ... yes, there will be some.

But I would like to think their are those who support these kids for what they do, and for what they went through."

Watching how the crowd was last night, knowing how friggin' well the young men and women of the Cadets have been performing their show, remembering what it's like to be in the last two days of a drum corps season and now reading this... It makes me wish I could be there just to cheer my guts out when they come into the stadium tonight.

Edited August 10, 2007 by bradrick

[jjeffeory]

The markings were getting worse as the night went on, especially the hashes, which were not relined during the break. They were probably bad for the cavaliers, but, as we all know, the cavaliers march an impressive drill, and spend a lot of time on the ground around midfield. Its no surprise that the hashes were nonexistent after they were finished...

That was an uncalled for attack on the Cavaliers (again). <**>

What does their "spending a lot of time on the ground" (geesh) have to do with anything? Like I said, why do the cadets need markings more than any other group when the cadets guide all the time, riiiight?

[Guard Diva]

why isn't the focus on the "other" corps directors who seemed oblivious to the fact that the field was not marked properly

perhaps the other directors didn't feel their kids needed the hash marks in order to be safe...perhaps they were not oblivious as you suggest, but they were simply indifferent becuase their kids leanr to dress to teh form, not the field.