TROOPERS MAKING THE FINALS!

[Peel Paint]

I think the political argument might be overstated; however, when the Troopers rebounded a couple years ago they had a lot of things to work on and fight for, including becoming financially stable, assembling a team of instructors and actually putting kids on the field.

Well, we all know that they have thus far been exceedingly successful at the aforementioned. However, there is another thing they have to fight and that is the stigma that came from years of fielding a not-so-good corps (speaking the truth in love). It simply takes time to shed that cloak of negative perception. However, I think along with the other aspects that they have been successful in, they are also succeeding in this!

[i'm the one who first suggested in this thread, without using the word, that politics CAN play a minor role in holding an ascending corps back in the standings.]

I'm not a conspiracist or one who looks at stuff as being pre-slotted, truthfully, but I'll also say that it would be hard for me to have overstated my point on it, since I suggested it is worth AT MOST a place or two, and I'll add only then when the scores are close, since typically it would only be a factor in one or a few captions out of many scored. Another way to look at it is that it may delay a corps on an upward trajectory in the standings to receive full credit by one season. It's almost impossible to prove or disprove, but I think it would also be naive to suggest that it never happens or can't happen in DCI, because of course it can in any human- and subjectively-judged endeavor.

You don't have to go back too far with Madison to, ahem, name a corps that at one time may have suffered a bit in the standings because there was no meeting of the minds between their staff and the judges. Or, as you suggest, Granny, that a corps that for awhile had some issues in their management and results may need a little more time to get full credit for their improvement.

But it's not like I'm suggesting a corps gets held down in 16th place when they should have been 10th or higher. That's not happening in my time in DCI, IMO, no. And it's more likely to happen, if it happens at all, to make it just a bit harder to break into that top six group or top three group than to break back into finals, only because there are corps that hang out in the top tiers that are hard to dislodge for many reasons, starting with consistent excellence.

I hope that's clearer.

Edited July 1, 2009 by Peel Paint

[Pinwiz]

The week between Denver and San Antonio is going to be the key to the entire battle. Troopers have to go on first in the battles that week because they're just out of the next pod of corps up.

The current duel is Colts vs Spirit vs Troopers vs Madison with the potential of Academy and Crossmen. The corps that come out of Dallas/Houston in 16th and below will be in trouble because they have the potential of competing in 18th at San Antonio if last summer's pod seeding is in effect. Being in the middle of the group is okay, being in the bottom is not.

We don't know how they're going to be seeding the big shows for the rest of the summer after San Antonio. Will Atlanta be based on San Antonio? Will it be based on the other big shows that week? If so, will those shows be based off of San Antonio or 2008?

It's going to be a hard week waiting until next Friday. Troop can just beat everyone else and make this discussion moot, or at least I would love it if it happens.