Under Armour - Retribution Is A Dish Best Served Cold

[garfield]

3 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:

I thought we had settled this a long time ago:  doing marching band is not athletics. Now if a band kid also plays football or soccer etc. then they are an athlete while doing that sport. You bet. But band and drum corps (sorry for being redundant here) are not sports, and the participants are not athletes. 

Hmmm...  Settled science, eh? OK, and we have 11, no 10!, years left.

Never mind.

 

 

[Fran Haring]

2 hours ago, garfield said:

OK, you go ahead and acquiesce when UA casts aspersions on an entire group of people, and hold back your blame while the accused are heard demonstrating their bias through their corporate microphones.  

In today's world it's perfectly acceptable for a "woke" society to defend the character and honor of people who choose to be something out of the mainstream.  We see it every, single day.  And yet, years of not-subtle characterizations of kids who study music are passed off as acceptable and un-addressable normal faults in otherwise "normal" people.

Give me a break.  EDIT: My target here is not Fran.  One You either defends music kids or you don't one doesn't.  UA's money and community "service" are not supposed to weigh on your one's defense but, apparently, they do in your world obviously, they do in many people's world.  Otherwise it wouldn't be considered mainstream to crap on band kids and music programs in general. 

I wonder the pushback if UA had said No because the gay concentration in band is too high and doesn't represent their prime customer base of strong, macho athletes.  Or because there are too many liberals in music and they don't want to upset their conservative customers by diluting their brand.

It's not you, personally Fran, that I rail against in this case.  It's the lack of consistency in the defense of those perceived as somehow "less" than, as you put it, "general society" and UA promotes that notion against a group of, mostly, kids while they get a pass because they're good corporate-citizens.  

My defense has been consistent since I was on the receiving end of it 45 years ago.  I don't blame The Limited, Wendy's, Nationwide, Cardinal Health, or the myriad of others corporations who saw no particular value in providing support in my locale.  But not a one of them made an accusation that was, at best, unfounded in the research and, at worst, mean as they politely showed us out.  UA is the only one I know of.  They, and that attitude, have earned my disdain.

"You can change the stripes on a zebra from vertical to horizontal and it's still a zebra."  

 

Thank you, and fair enough. I understand your point about being perceived as "second-class citizens" so to speak. I hate that, too. And I've been around drum corps/marching music for even longer than you have. I think only a few folks here... Mike Davis for sure, Xandandl, perhaps, maybe a couple more... have been around longer. And that's scary. LOL.

I just think that you've taken one incident with one company and blown it up to an example of a corporation gone completely rogue... for lack of a better term... because, in your opinion, marching members are athletes. "Institutional arrogance" like you've said. 

To me, "institutional arrogance" is a pattern of behavior, not one situation. Unless I am missing something... maybe I am... there's no evidence that Under Armour (meaning the CEO  on down) has shown a pattern of disdain for the members of marching bands. 

Heck, like I said in an earlier post... the band members at West Chester U. (arguably, based on their Sudler Trophy award, the best college band in the nation) wear UA stuff, and their music staff models that apparel in promos. Why would Under Armour ever allow that if they were institutionally anti-marching music??? Shouldn't they be telling the WCU administration  "we only want your athletes to wear our gear... if we see those bandos wearing that stuff, we're outta here" ???  Shouldn't the WCU band members be angry at Under Armour??? (They sure seemed like a pretty happy group at Homecoming.) I believe... not completely sure here... the same is the case with the U. of Maryland... Kevin Plank's alma mater.

Moving on here. Wishing you all a great holiday season, and wishing all the corps full audition camps and successful open houses.

[HockeyDad]

1 hour ago, garfield said:

Hmmm...  Settled science, eh? OK, and we have 11, no 10!, years left.

Never mind.

 

 

I was going to add to my post that 99% of scientists agree with me. But didn’t want to go there. But since you went there....what the heck. 

[xandandl]

12 hours ago, Sutasaurus said:

If memory serves this old man....wasn’t it a Circle K sponsorship and not K Mart? No recollection of K-Mart being a sponsor.

Circle K sponsored Suncoast Sound.

[Sutasaurus]

8 minutes ago, xandandl said:

Circle K sponsored Suncoast Sound.

And Cadets of Bergen County For a season or two in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember them marching one of their corporate flags during finale on multiple occasions.

[xandandl]

18 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

And Cadets of Bergen County For a season or two in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember them marching one of their corporate flags during finale on multiple occasions.

 

18 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

And Cadets of Bergen County For a season or two in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember them marching one of their corporate flags during finale on multiple occasions.

I don't at all and I was on staff those years. Circle K is not present in NJ and PA as it was in Florida and South. But it's all 30 years ago and what would an officer of the corps know...

[Sutasaurus]

12 minutes ago, xandandl said:

 

I don't at all and I was on staff those years. Circle K is not present in NJ and PA as it was in Florida and South. But it's all 30 years ago and what would an officer of the corps know...

A thought so nice it’s quoted twice? 
As a former staff member you might have better access to that sort of info. I toured for many years as support staff where Regiment and Cadets competed.. maybe it came after Suncoast went inactive? I do remember that sponsorship.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Sutasaurus

[garfield]

1 hour ago, Fran Haring said:

Thank you, and fair enough. I understand your point about being perceived as "second-class citizens" so to speak. I hate that, too. And I've been around drum corps/marching music for even longer than you have. I think only a few folks here... Mike Davis for sure, Xandandl, perhaps, maybe a couple more... have been around longer. And that's scary. LOL.

I just think that you've taken one incident with one company and blown it up to an example of a corporation gone completely rogue... for lack of a better term... because, in your opinion, marching members are athletes. "Institutional arrogance" like you've said. 

To me, "institutional arrogance" is a pattern of behavior, not one situation. Unless I am missing something... maybe I am... there's no evidence that Under Armour (meaning the CEO  on down) has shown a pattern of disdain for the members of marching bands. 

Heck, like I said in an earlier post... the band members at West Chester U. (arguably, based on their Sudler Trophy award, the best college band in the nation) wear UA stuff, and their music staff models that apparel in promos. Why would Under Armour ever allow that if they were institutionally anti-marching music??? Shouldn't they be telling the WCU administration  "we only want your athletes to wear our gear... if we see those bandos wearing that stuff, we're outta here" ???  Shouldn't the WCU band members be angry at Under Armour??? (They sure seemed like a pretty happy group at Homecoming.) I believe... not completely sure here... the same is the case with the U. of Maryland... Kevin Plank's alma mater.

Moving on here. Wishing you all a great holiday season, and wishing all the corps full audition camps and successful open houses.

check, check, and ditto

 

[xandandl]

3 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

A thought so nice it’s quoted twice? 
As a former staff member you might have better access to that sort of info. I toured for many years as support staff where Regiment and Cadets competed.. maybe it came after Suncoast went inactive? I do remember that sponsorship.

I'll go through Dave Shaw's book today. That sort of thing would be mentioned if it did happen (and not one of things or people that GH censored out of the script. Yes, he did that to several longtimers he didn't find loyal to him.)

Googling Circle K info finds that Circle K sponsored Suncoast for 2 seasons; Cadets of Bergen County moniker and Suncoast were on the field at the same time, but Tampa dissolved first; no mention of Cadets in Circle K info.

[cybersnyder]

3 minutes ago, Sutasaurus said:

A thought so nice it’s quoted twice? 
As a former staff member you might have better access to that sort of info. I toured for many years as support staff where Regiment and Cadets competed.. maybe it came after Suncoast went inactive? I do remember that sponsorship.

I don't remember a Kmart flag on field, but I remember a formation of the Cadets in tight concentric arc, probably indoors and the camera is off to the left about 10-12' up and then the Kmart logo fades in. And then I see other people have the Kmart / Cadets hallucination. It could have been '84-'86, then I joined the Army '86-'89 and didn't follow much while in the Army. Casually followed '89-'93 and then less so '93-'00 or so. The earlier span was well before anything internet related took hold. I'm mostly curious at this point, not trying to be argumentative. Was it just urban legend and I dreamt something? I remember thinking it was an odd sponsorship because Kmart sucks in the words of Rainman.