Overage members

[cantgetenoughcorps]

While at the wonderful show in Madison, I was sitting behind a couple of women who were chatting away in between corps. They were talking about a kid who had marched a corp a few years ago, and he was 25. I didn't catch the whole story, other than the fact that he had a cousin that looked almost identical who was 19. He borrowed the cousins ID and marched for 2 years.

Now I know the corps probably had no clue, and DCI probably had no clue that this was going on. I think one of the women was his mother, the way she was talking. She actually seemed proud of the fact that they were able to pull this off.

My question is this. What if DCI found out about this? This corps didn't medal that year, but if they had and DCI found out, would this disqualify that corps from the medal? They did place top 12, would that eliminate them from that as well, and would the scorebooks eventually show the 13th place corps as a finalist? Would/Could DCI pull something from a corps for something that happened several years ago, as some of the situations that occured in the 70's?

What would happen had that corps been the champions that year? Would the 2nd place corps then become the winner? The corps obviously wasn't aware of the situation, or if they were, somehow covered it up. I don't honestly think the corps was aware of it from the way this woman talked. So would DCI penalize a corps for someone else falsifying information? I honestly don't know the process for which a corps would even prove someone is who they say they are. If they have their photo ID with a picture of someone that looks exactly like them, and have all the records they need, there really isn't much a corps could do.

I know when I lived in Texas, there were many Latino who have fake paperwork. Since I moved to Iowa, there are also many Latino people who live here with fake papers. I am Latino, so I don't want anyone to think these are racist comments. I know there are hundreds of thousands of people living under another persons identity in the US, so I know that this could easily be occuring in DCI on a regular basis. This was the first time I had ever heard anything like this happening though.

I thought about calling DCI or the corps with what I heard, but decided it was better not to call. I realized that there is no proof, and many innocent people could be hurt. I suppose I can understand wanting to do something so bad that you would do anything to get there. I know many families from my country also have done many things to get to a place where they want to be. I was just surprised to hear about it happening in the drum corps world.

[MikeN]

Please refrain from "I heard..." rumor posts. Such speculation does not contribute to the community discussions on here.

Thanks,

Mike