SCV 1989 over age members

[drumno5]

Not verifiable... Take a look at the numbers, though.......

OTOH, B'men only dropped from 3rd to 4th, with a point differential of 2.15 from their prelims score. In the same show Crossmen dropped two places, with a point differential of over 3 points, and Cadets dropped a position, with a point differential of 4+ points. Was there a directive to dump them too?

Holiday regards, no personal disrespect intended.

Thanks for the discussion,

Fred O.

[Bob984]

OTOH, B'men only dropped from 3rd to 4th, with a point differential of 2.15 from their prelims score. In the same show Crossmen dropped two places, with a point differential of over 3 points, and Cadets dropped a position, with a point differential of 4+ points. Was there a directive to dump them too?

Holiday regards, no personal disrespect intended.

Thanks for the discussion,

Fred O.

When you are a contender..... .65 from the top and then 4.2 down is significant.....winning high brass in prelims and finishing in 6th in brass in finals is quite a drop....and Bayonne was quite good at finals (ie no big drop in performance level, as the score would indicate) yes, you can point to scoring things everywhere over the course of drum corps history. In terms of the Crossmen that year, I was in that corps. Prelim scores from 10th to 20th were a bit high, and also very tight in that range as a result of some early "inflation" at prelims. Also, we were definitely better in prelims than we were at finals, so I have no problem with those two things explaining our drop in score and placement.; those in front of us beat us fair and square. I believe that the Cadets were on 1st, and back then, it was normal (although not quite fair) for the 1st corps or 2 on in finals to get rough scores so that much "room" was left for numbers above them, and room to go in between. Also, the Cadets drumline that year was weak for a finalist (fortunately for them they had quite a good brass line), and that was a healthy amount of their scoring problem.

All I can tell you is that I trust my source, and I fully believe them and that there was indeed a specific "directive" to "dump" the Bridgemen at finals.....however, I am not going to go into details, and like I said, I can't prove it, as all was verbal.......but I stand by my comment, and frankly I wish it wasn't true.

GB

[Dave]

Given that you won't cite your source, however, I'm not sure how you can expect us to simply take your word for such a statement.

[Bob984]

Given that you won't cite your source, however, I'm not sure how you can expect us to simply take your word for such a statement.

understood..........I just don't want to open a huge thing up when I don't have physical proof......ie anything written or

recorded.......but I do believe, unfortunately, that it was quite true........drum corps, just like

nearly everything else, unfortunately, has not been totally void of corruption.........

GB

[Dave]

I won't disagree with that. I'm just saying, you're an anonymous poster citing an unnamed source...I wouldn't be too surprised when the specific claim is taken with a grain of salt. I've heard so many stories on this it's hard to tell where the stories end and the truth begins.

[IllianaLancerContra]

IIRC there was a claim - some years ago on either RAMD or DCP, that the VK 'Surfer Girl' in 86 or 87 was overage.

or am I misinformed/bad synapse integration...?

[byline]

eventually, (not exactly sure when) DCI became very particular about birth certificates/age documentation on all marching members of every corps.

I know that in '78, my first year to march with Oakland Crusaders, it was a big deal, and we were all required to have our birth certificates on file with the corps. My understanding was that this was a direct result of the Bridgemen situation from the year before. Of course, it was also a big deal for Canadian corps having to cross the border to tour in the States.

[lindap]

Looked through my scrapbook and found my 1970 C.D.C.A. membership card. I think we had to show our birth certificate before they gave us a card. Inside the card is name, address, date of birth and an issued by signature. Also on the inside is a page called Transfer Record. We took our cards every time we went on tour. On the back it says 'use of card is governed by the General Rules of this Association: 1a & b; 2a, b, c, d & e.' The front of the card has a logo similar as the top of this ad

http://www.optimists-alumni.org/photos/dis...um=79&pos=7

and I'm not going to scan the card 'cause then you'll know my birthday ;-)

[Joe Salvatore]

Hence the hole in the brass line and the infamous "bumper cars" in the snare line during "Masquerade."

Yep... messed us up badly trying to determine how to handle the snare spot drill-wise.

[Joe Salvatore]

One of the overage guys was a snare player who I'm certain was kicked out when we were at our housing sight for the Centerville, Ohio show.The above article says GR was notified on August 8 about the first guy (the snare). Since we were presumably already at our housing site for the "Dayton" show, I'm sure my memory is correct about where we were when we found out. The website corpsreps.com identifies that as Dayton, but I’m pretty sure it was Centerville, Ohio for the housing. The actual show there was on August 10 – eight days before Nats.

Yes, I'm almost positive that is when Ralph talked with us.

The snareline had time to adjust their drill and close in that hole. Just how noticeable the adjustment was during finals has been the object of much commentary on DCP. I personally feel that taking into consideration how close it was to Championships, they did a pretty good job (considering how drilled into your head set points were at that point in the season).

Well... not the best really... we tried but it was challenging for our drumline.

I said before that I’m not 100% sure how we found out about Mark, the snare or who told us about him. But I'll never forget finals week in 89 when GR called us all together outside the school to tell us about a second British guy having just been kicked out for lying about his age. It was probably the maddest I ever saw GR in the two years I was a member of SCV when he was telling us. His face turned blood red and his face kinda quivered a little. The guy acually had tears whelling up in his eyes. But it was kinda like tears of rage (which is impossible to forget). You have to understand how much we all loved GR. In that moment, I think every one of us would have found that guy and beat him to a pulp JUST FOR GAIL. JUST FOR HURTING GAIL SO DEEPLY. Nevermind what he'd just done to us. (We'd worry about that some other time.) You could really feel how betrayed Gail felt. These guys were willing to forge documents and jeopardize an entire SCV season (and what looked like a pretty good shot at the title). But I think we understood that we still had a job to do. It was like Gail was mad enough for all of us, so we didn't need to get mixed up in it.

Shocking... it was rather unbelievable that someone had the *&^%S to know that the snare had been removed and he continued to think he would escape without being found.

Let's not forget that week also included a deathly silent ride back to the housing school after loosing quarter-finals to Phantom Regiment.

Gail, again, rose to the occasion and addressed us indicating we had actually won the show and penalties of many corps for "illegally grounding equipment" (hats) in the pit area were being reversed. We had masks for Masquerade that were grounded after their use and BD took off hats and grounded them.

Thank goodness that the vets stayed strong... I was a rookie with SCV that year, my age-out year, after having 5 prior seasons elsewhere.

Gail also decided that with the hurricane of things going on we just need to get out - he took us to a local mall to get our minds off everything (over-age members, quarterfinals penalties, 4 straight 2nd place finishes at finals).

Best part of that week was watching the horn-line singing their parts (with words) to the closer and all of us on my bus singing Send in the Clowns on the way to Finals!

Edited July 13, 2010 by Joe Salvatore