The Beating in Whitewater

[Michael Boo]

DCI is not in the business of screwing corps or putting in "fixes."

I knew a couple designers/instructors with Knights in 1983. I had spoken with them about what happened between Whitewater and Rockford the next day. Both felt the corps lost some luster on Sunday night, though not twelve points worth. And one admitted that the staff, who was excellent and motivated, hadn't been in that position before and didn't know what to do to carry the corps through Miami.

There was a cut-off in financial distribution between 15th and 16th, as there also was between 8th and 9th. One stated something very close to, "I hope we place in the top 16 because we've already spent the money."

Knights spent a number of years moving up through the ranks and came out of the gates in both 1982 and 1983 smoking. Al Temby's drill in 1983 is perhaps best remembered for the head of a knight that appeared in "3/4 March" in "Camelot" towards the end. Carrie Fund (now Zimny) was doing some quite innovative guard work, playing off of her groundbreaking work with the Marian Catholic High School band, which was becoming a major BOA (then Marching Bands of America) power. Knights had kind of a home-grown staff that had developed into a pretty cohesive entity.

When they came out in 1984, they were really small.

[LancerLegend]

......And one admitted that the staff, who was excellent and motivated, hadn't been in that position before and didn't know what to do to carry the corps through (fill in the city).

I know more than one staff that has experienced something like that. And one measure of a great staff and management, but be how well they can rebound their corps from a setback.

[HornsUp]

I knew a couple designers/instructors with Knights in 1983.

Were you aware that they, and their management, were actively recruiting current marching members from their competitors? It is highly possible that there was some retribution for these actions. Some people in this activity may have had low friends in high places. "There is no honor amongst thieves".

[HornsUp]

Scores in 1983 were all over the place, sometimes due to three different systems that were used that season.

A number of local shows in DCM were judged on the standard DCI sheets, but with a "half panel". There was a single judge on a caption, instead of two, and in the tabulation every corps received a 10 for each sheet that was not judged. This resulted in some highly inflated scores, and then some sudden drops when a full panel was deployed.

Also, on the Southern tour, DCI was experimenting with a different set of sheets. The size of the panel and the points distribution was not the same at all. Added to that, the judges they hired were almost all novices to the D&B activity.

All this made for some very interesting sessions at critiques, as you might well imagine.

[Guardguy89]

I remember the '83 show - I really liked it.

I just googled it on "that video place that shall not be named" - it didn't have the '83 show but it did have a clip of the '84 one (They weren't as small as I remembered them to be).

If anyone knows where I could check out the '83 show again - let me know.

Later,

Mike

[Hup234]

I didn't know about the Geneseo Knights saga, but I'm glad it was presented for discussion.

In my day there were many, many corps, and I will always believe some corps were then considered expendable - and if you rocked any political boats, your corps paid dearly. Our sin was to be an upstart corps without the "right" inside political and judging connections and then introducing certain innovations and styles without the "permission" of the powers-that-then-were. There was only one way they could 'get' you:

All your caption scores would be in order except for one caption that would be low enough to knock you out of the running. At the critique, that particular judge - the one who had either agreed or been ordered to take the heat, we never knew which - would deal with the anger and confusion by mumbling vague explanations ("I just called 'em like I saw 'em...") and always be in a hurry to move on to other, happier instructors and directors.

This, as you can imagine, was murder by intent against a corps that didn't fit in with "the program" during a time when there were many corps and many contests. The resultant demoralization would assure a quick end or, at the very least, a reduction to parade-corps or Class C status where no more waves could be created.

I'm sworn to protect the identity of one former Midwestern judge - an independent sort - who came forth after we disbanded to say this was true. He said he caught holy hell and threats of recrimination from the chief judge and other colleagues in the judging association after one Illinois show where he gave us, the upstarts, a fair bugle score which placed us a little too equal to the polite company that was very used to being in the winner's circle that year, if you get my drift. And that took courage, because every judge who also taught a corps, as he did, had better play the political game, or . . .

I don't know what, if anything, Geneseo did back then to incur the wrath of "the connected", but it just takes one or two powerful people who feel wronged to upset a whole apple cart. But Geneseo, just like us, came up the ranks fast - and when you do that you make enemies from those who feel you didn't 'pay your dues' and they don't mind seeing you get some sort of comeuppance.

One more story: at one important Midwestern show we won one prelims handily -- and then got dead last in the finals because of one "judge" who among other things ripped our horribly out-of-tune french horns. When at the critique it was pointed out that we didn't use any french horns, he was suddenly concerned that he had to hurry on lest he made the other instructors and directors in line to speak with him wait too long and, with that, turned and left. (I understand he's still judging.)

[CrunchyTenor]

Back to the OP about 1982, the dump at Whitewater was significantly more than in 83.

August 2, 82 Dubuque IA DCM 2 78.700

August 7, 82 DCI Midwest Prelims Whitewater WI DCI 23 61.300

August 8, 82 Springfield IL 2 76.550

I can't say the "fix" was in. What else can you think, though, given the information above? Plus, the 83 corps still made finals at Whitewater. The 82 corps was effectively kept out, and subsequently "slotted" out of DCI Championships.

Some will be quick to point out that DCM scoring was different than DCI. Consider this, then, using three corps at both competitions...

Dubuque (DCM) 8/2/82

Madison Scouts 89.00

Knights 78.70

Colts 66.95

Whitewater Prelims (DCI) 8/7/82

Madison Scouts 86.25

Colts 62.00

Knights 61.30

Scouts drop 2.75, Colts drop 4.95, Knights drop 17.40. Something stinks here.

Garry in Vegas

PS Source CorpsReps.com

Edited May 15, 2008 by CrunchyTenor

[gmanbay41]

Scores in 1983 were all over the place, sometimes due to three different systems that were used that season.

A number of local shows in DCM were judged on the standard DCI sheets, but with a "half panel". There was a single judge on a caption, instead of two, and in the tabulation every corps received a 10 for each sheet that was not judged. This resulted in some highly inflated scores, and then some sudden drops when a full panel was deployed.

Also, on the Southern tour, DCI was experimenting with a different set of sheets. The size of the panel and the points distribution was not the same at all. Added to that, the judges they hired were almost all novices to the D&B activity.

All this made for some very interesting sessions at critiques, as you might well imagine.

I agree, alot of the problems in 83' was the judges didn't know where to put corps with the new systems. So most corps jumped all over the place.

When we were in a show in Ohio, we had a few judges come talk to the corps and apologized for the problems.

Look at our score from the first show. It was a 47.15. We were not a 47. But thats where they put us and because of that we are in the history books as the corps who had the lowest score at the beginning of the season to go on and make finals.

The Knights were a VERY good corps that year and like all of us didn't deserve the Yo-Yo scores from one show to another.

George

[audiodb]

One more story: at one important Midwestern show we won one prelims handily -- and then got dead last in the finals because of one "judge" who among other things ripped our horribly out-of-tune french horns. When at the critique it was pointed out that we didn't use any french horns, he was suddenly concerned that he had to hurry on lest he made the other instructors and directors in line to speak with him wait too long and, with that, turned and left. (I understand he's still judging.)

What show was that at? I don't recall any show where the prelim winner came in last place in the finals - wow.

[byline]

I'm not sure there has been a discussion about this to this day.

Oh, there's been plenty of discussion . . . just not, as far as I can tell, with participation from DCI.

Replies in this thread provide some explanation, but it's still quite difficult for me to understand such a huge drop in score, and I have a hard time imagining how any judge could justify it. Of course, my own corps was at the receiving end of some scoring head-scratchers, but none quite so dramatic as this.