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This is old news, my question, had this been exposed at the time of the incident or following the performance, would it have been reason for disqualification?

After all they had someone no longer in the corp marching...This is the same as the bridgemen having over aged kids performing.

Similar to the Tour de France and doping allegations that cost Landis his tainted victory.

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This is old news, my question, had this been exposed at the time of the incident or following the performance, would it have been reason for disqualification?

After all they had someone no longer in the corp marching...This is the same as the bridgemen having over aged kids performing.

Similar to the Tour de France and doping allegations that cost Landis his tainted victory.

Seriously doubt it but who knows. It's not like some dude from the stands picked up cymbals and marched the show.

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After all they had someone no longer in the corp marching...This is the same as the bridgemen having over aged kids performing.

I don’t think it is the same, the age limit was a DCI policy where as the other was a corps, Blue Devils, rule. It was their decision to bounce him from finals.

Similar to the Tour de France and doping allegations that cost Landis his tainted victory

Doping in sports is usually considered 'performance enhancing' and it’s doubtful this would fall under that – some leagues have recently introduced broader drug policies to cover all illegal drugs but many have allowed for pot but not for steroid use

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I honestly can't say, without the particulars, that the kid can be chastised for what he did. Was he the only one that broke corps rules that summer? Was he alone in his rule breaking, or did he take the heat for a few others? Was the punishment handed out not in line with the offense?

So the corps let him stay on tour, but didn't allow him to march? That confuses me to some extent, I get it that they wanted to kid to be part of the organization, but any amount of time on tour allows kids to hatch plans. And that they did. And some members of the corps helped him crash the field during finals night and march. Why didn't the corps director stop the action and have him removed? Being in the hunt for a championship is really no excuse to teach a lesson or do what you feel is morally right. I really seems that the corps director might have been the only one out of the loop on the finals night plan. Others may not have helped, but they may have turned a blind eye to the kid storming the field to march the last show. Not a slam on this corps, it could have happened to any corps out there. It seems to have been a perfect storm of some sort.

There is VERY little liklihood that he intended to be the only one blowing blue smoke. So, I don't doubt there is some truth in this. I heard about the arrest and subsequent booting shortly before the BD busses arived in the parking lot for finals that day. I don;t remember when the actual incident occured. Maybe the night before. Maybe that morning. Me and another buddy who had also marched in Scojo's SCV lines in '91 and '92 found BD in the lot and sure enough they were one base drummer short. nasty luck for the other dudes in the line.

I regret the ribbing I attempted to give Scott in the lot as that wound was, in retrospect, way too fresh. I am not even 100% sure he heard me and i don't remember exactly what I said. I can be reasonably certain it wasn't funny then. i'll bet if I heard what I said now we might giggle.

We headed in to the stadium to watch the show and...sure enough...the missing bass drummer came running onto the field. Gnarly! The line was CLEARLY hyped to see him. There was no way that Gibbs or anyone else on the staff could and should have done anything further to get him off the field at that point. It would have been a disaster had they tried as close as he was to the downbeat. They assumed they had done the responsible thing already by removing him from the corps earlier.

I have to disagree. Wasn't smart enough not to get caught? I had a great corps director that spoke to us before tour, in essence "don't be stupid and let me catch you". That statement basically allows the behavior as long as you don't get caught. That is a double message and a cop out. It lets the administration take the easy way out, "oh they did what? I never caught them doing it so...".

Who said he asked others to help him march finals? The idea was probably hatched in the back of the bus by the whole drumline, it probably wasn't his idea. Especially as part of a bass line, that was a community decision. You might say the kid could have said "listen fellas I was kicked out fair and square and I'm gonna go by the directors decision". I would say that would be a slap in the face to the bunch drummers who he drummed with for nine months and wanted to sneak him on the field for finals.

As a monday morning quarterback with no real details of the case I can say the situation was handled poorly. It must be hard to kick a member out, but it must be harder to know that the many others didn't support your decision and went out of their way to circumvent the punishment.

There are people here who are ACTUALLY sympathetic to the drummer?! :doh: :doh: :doh: :doh:

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BD placed 3rd in 2000, they don't give rings for 3rd place finishes.

The irony that I'm surprised has been missed here so far, is that apparently the Blue Devils marched a performer on Finals Night in 2000 that was not a member of their Corps. Their 3rd place finish was never challenged. The message means that any Corps can march anyone they want on Finals Night, provided they are not overage. We did learn that he was not a member of the Blue Devils the day of Finals, no ? And yet the Corps marched a non member ( albeit unknowingly by staff according to reports ) on Finals Night, but the Corps was not disqualified afterwards, and their 3rd place placement stood nonetheless. Amazing when you think about the consequence of this. This opens the door in the future for any Corps to bring in "ringers " for Finals Night alone to perform if they so choose and it could not be legally challenged as such Corps could point to the BD incident in 2000 where the BD Corps successfully marched a performer that according to the BD staff was officially and legally not a member of the BD Corps for the Championship night performance back then either.

Edited by BRASSO
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The irony that is missed here too is that apparently the Blue Devils marched a performer on Finals Night in 2000 that was not a member of their Corps. Their 3rd place finish was never challenged. The result means that any Corps can march anyone they want on Finals Night, provided they are not overage. We did learn that he was not a member of the Blue Devils the day of Finals, no ? And yet the Corps marched a non member ( albeit unknowingly by staff according to reports ) on Finals Night, but the Corps was not disqualified afterwards, and their 3rd place placement stood nonetheless. Amazing when you think about the consequence of this. This opens the door for any Corps to bring in "ringers " for Finals Night alone to perform if they so choose in the future, and it could not be legally challenged as such Corps could point to the BD incident in 2000 where the BD Corps successfully marched a performer that according to the BD staff was officially and legally not a member of the BD Corps for Finals Nite back then either.

Very interesting point. However, I don't think any corps in their right mind would do something like this. The big difference with BD is this kid was a member of their corps all summer long, and spent the thousands of hours of rehearsal time with the corps, and knew the entire show backwards and forwards. It would be stupid to bring in someone new on finals week to march a show if they hadn't rehearsed with the corps all summer. And if they had rehearsed all summer, as long as they met the legal criteria for DCI, you would think you would want them competing in every show of the summer, not just finals week. The performance is a cumulative of 150 kids, not just one, and one spectacular member in a group isn't going to raise any scores. So regardless of whether or not BD should have been disqualified(and I don't think they should have been for this incident) I don't see this as any incentive whatsoever for another corps pulling someone in on finals night(or week for that matter)

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In practically, it probably would not work in today's DCI, so I agree its probably highly unlikely that it would occur. That said, in earlier decades, both Junior Corps and Senior Corps from time to time have inserted " ringers " into their Corps very late in the season, or even as late as at Championships itself( usually a soloist " screamer " or two ) to perform and give the Corps potentially that little extra competitive spark and edge they felt was needed.

Edited by BRASSO
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