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Staff Yesterday vs. Today


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I always chuckle when I see the amount of staff corps have today and I think back to my time in the 1970's. We had one brass, one percussion, one drill and maybe one color guard instructor and they weren't all there all the time so an older member would lead horn warm ups and rehearsals. Today.....10 staff members for each section, a therapist or two, trainers, 2 surgeons, etc. Okay slight exaggeration LOL. But you get the idea!

Actually in 1976 we had 3 drum guys but only one was with the corps all the time.

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Staff Sizes:

WAY back in the day, actually my day, (1958-1966) staff sizes were pretty small. One each instructor for each caption, and possibly a a color guard instructor.

I understand the late Jim Jones taught ALL the captions for the Troopers until he got some experienced people to work with them. St Kevins Emerald Knights had Cliff Fisher as their drum instructor AND drill instructor.

All these guys had day jobs. Jim Jones was a building contractor, and St Kevin's horn instructor, "Buddy" Bergdoll, was a fireman. Cavaliers Lenny Pikarski, was I believe a mailman, and Mickey Petrone taught school.

The legendary St Vincent's Cadets of Bayonne NJ won something like 11 national championships in the old VFW and American Legion with a staff that consisted of Jim Donnelly on horns, Vinnie Cerbonne on drums and Mickey Petrone on drill. Mickey Petrone was also the corps director.

Chicago Cavaliers and Blessed Sacrament won numerous National Championships with instructional staffs that usually totaled one each per caption.

It;s a different ball game these days,. Just take a quick look at the Horn staff for the Troopers.

Elphaba :flower:

WWW

Edited by elphaba01
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Yeah, back then the norm was one instructor for each caption. Pretty soon, there will be two staff members per corps member! :) I was always most impressed with the staff and management who stressed excellence not only on the field, but in all aspects of life.

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One year our corps hired a drill team director to write the drill and so he came in with NOTHING on paper! He started putting members in places and then got to the 3rd set and said, "Now we will do a Trooper starburst!" We looked at each other and we could read each others minds, "You have got to be kidding me!" Soon we were sent away for an hour lunch, came back and the guy was gone...FIRED! Our brass instructor Dick Lewis was writing drill and wrote that year as well as taught horns. Wonderful guy who passed away way to young.

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