A Modest Proposal, Part 1: Carolina Crown Wins in 2015

[1956OPR]

I thank all of you who responded to this proposal. An appreciation of satire would have helped some to understand it. See Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal.

Some of the dissent came from those who assumed I was either a Carolina Crown homer or anti-Blue Devil. What silly arguments. If you had taken the time to do so, you could have checked my Viewer Profile and learned that I am an original MM and fan forever of the Phantom Regiment. I preferred Crown's shows in 2013 and 2015 but that is the extent of any Crown "homerism".

If your argument consisted of questioning my motives, you shall be confined to Carolina Crown's INFERNO, where those of you who are Devils alumni or fans will be right at home. I offer an exemption to Chief Guns whose opinion I always value. He will be afforded entrance into Crown's 2016 production "Purgatorio".

If you knew of my connection to the Regiment, you would also know that this proposal is not an argument for a retrospective re-ordering of DCI results.

I did an analysis of the medal results for the last 44 years.

In 8 of those years ( "72, "74, "93, "96, "99, "00. "08 and "15 ), my proposal would have resulted in different gold medalists.

Interestingly, "93 represents the only tie using my averaging formula, i.e., CBC and Star would have tied but CBC would break the tie if the lowest cumulative ordinal was adopted as a tie breaker.

In 7 of those years ( "80, "92, "95, "97, "98, "01 and "14 ), my proposal would alter the recipients of the silver and bronze medals.

So, in 15 of DCI's 44 year, 1/3 of all the medal placements would be different, perhaps not an overriding consideration for averaging results but not an insignificant one for future discussions.

Edited September 3, 2015 by 1956OPR

[Tim Coffey]

"Penalize by 0.25 for every championship won by that corps"

Hmmmm.......penalizing 21 year-olds because of what some 60 year-olds accomplished in 1976.

Sure, seems fair.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Tim Coffey

[Tobias]

This is dumb but I do find it odd that caption awards are averaged over 3 nights and overall is "winner takes all" Saturday night

Not really. The Saturday night winner is the big recipient but for captions, I think rewarding a caption for consistency is fine. It's a caption award. I'm sure BD would have been very happy not winning any caption award and winning finals.

[Cappybara]

I'm solidly on the side that thinks caption awards should be based on finals night alone but I'm sure I'm in the minority.

[Tobias]

I'm solidly on the side that thinks caption awards should be based on finals night alone but I'm sure I'm in the minority.

So if Crown won brass 99% of shows and one judge on finals night awarded highest score to XYZ corps, you're more comfortable with that? I just think caption awards should reflect that group that consistently dominated that caption not just one judge's opinion on one night.

[drumcorpsfever]

So if Crown won brass 99% of shows and one judge on finals night awarded highest score to XYZ corps, you're more comfortable with that? I just think caption awards should reflect that group that consistently dominated that caption not just one judge's opinion on one night.

Agree 100%. That's the downside of getting a rouge judge in the mix of one show. If this isn't an issue, then why is there a thread each season on who the panel of judges are? Who is on the panel shouldn't matter. But, unfortunately, it does. And for the reason, I like the suggestion of a weighted average of the 3 Indy championship shows to determine the winner. There's too much at stake for one judge to throw a monkey wrench in the works.

Edited September 3, 2015 by drumcorpsfever

[seen-it-all]

So if Crown won brass 99% of shows and one judge on finals night awarded highest score to XYZ corps, you're more comfortable with that?

YES!!!! Absolutely, 100%, with no hesitations YES!

This three night average thing is ludicrous. If your caption is good enough to win 99% of your shows, then they should be good enough to win on the night that matters most. If they can't, then they don't deserve the caption award. It's absurd to me that a corps who doesn't win their caption on finals night could somehow be given a trophy for it.

At least with the Jim Ott Award this year, Crown won by a tenth and Cadets won by a tenth, so they were essentially even for finals night and it truly was a winner take all occasion. The way it should be.

Edited September 4, 2015 by seen-it-all

[BDCorno]

So if Crown won brass 99% of shows and one judge on finals night awarded highest score to XYZ corps, you're more comfortable with that? I just think caption awards should reflect that group that consistently dominated that caption not just one judge's opinion on one night.

So you're okay with Blue Devils being awarded the 1988 title?

[BDCorno]

So if Crown won brass 99% of shows and one judge on finals night awarded highest score to XYZ corps, you're more comfortable with that? I just think caption awards should reflect that group that consistently dominated that caption not just one judge's opinion on one night.

So you're okay with Blue Devils being awarded the 2008 title?

[BDCorno]

So if Crown won brass 99% of shows and one judge on finals night awarded highest score to XYZ corps, you're more comfortable with that? I just think caption awards should reflect that group that consistently dominated that caption not just one judge's opinion on one night.

Yeah, I know you were speaking of caption awards, but why wouldn't you extend it to the total score? After all, with closely contested years like this one, one rogue judge in a caption could make the difference in total score. Would you be okay with a group playing a book of average difficulty cleanly for most of the year, beating out a group who attempted a viciously difficult program and ultimately knocked it out of the park at finals? Tough call IMHO.