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2019 Madison Scouts!


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Given this day and age, I don't understand the uproar about Scouts officially declaring going co-ed. Sorry, no offense, but people need to get over it. This is the way of world, people. And news flash: Boy Scouts allow female members, gasp!

They've had female members in, what, 3 or 4 past years? Did people pull their financial support, mock corps leadership, and express their outrage each of those years? Or maybe it was ok for the years they made finals, but not ok last year?

And I didn't don't want to hear "it was different". It wasn't. 

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On 7/31/2019 at 11:20 PM, swmstom said:

I have a couple of thoughts on Chuck's post discussed in the thread.

1st. Why are the Scouts in the situation of a "total rebuild"? Where did things go wrong and who is responsible. Are those responsible for allowing Scouts to fall so far competitively being held accountable?

2nd. I scratch my head at the idea of doing a show strictly to please the crowd without "playing the game" in order to retain members. Seems to me finishing dead last most shows and getting beat by nearly everyone in World Class would push most folks AWAY, not to stay. And another thing....and I really think this gets to a root of the problem with Scouts these days....why is there such a divide in philosophy between "crowd pleasing" and being competitive, or "playing the game"? It should be BOTH! You should NEVER sacrifice competitive possibilities for the sake of having a fun or entertaining show. Just as you shouldn't purposefully put on a boring, esoteric or bizarre show with no entertainment value for the sake of scoring better.

Jumping back to this because I had a sudden thought along those lines--to a certain extent, what he's describing with Madison is basically what they did at Crossmen his first year (the second time around), in 2011--throwback show with enjoyable music that stylistically was a Crossmen-back-to-being-Crossmen show.

They finished 17th that year, but popped into finals in 2012.

I don't think it necessarily will work that way this time, but I can see why they might think it's the way to go.

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Anyone ever come up with a reason why the going co-ed announcement was made in the middle of the tour? Just when the corps doesn’t need any distractions.....

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3 hours ago, MikeN said:

MSDBA used to post their board minutes online.  It was a problem as far back as 1999.  And someone in this thread mentioned board minutes talking about the difficulty recruiting guard members in 1975.  

Mike

This point gets always gets lost in the shuffle. Anyone who's surprised that this is a "rebuild' year has ignored the several other rebuild attempts (financial and/or competitive) this organization seems to get into over the past 20 years.

7 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said:

Anyone ever come up with a reason why the going co-ed announcement was made in the middle of the tour? Just when the corps doesn’t need any distractions.....

Not sure, but there's really no such thing as "too early" for announcements of this type. I think the distraction element is minimal (at least based on chatting with a former student who's currently marching).

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28 minutes ago, ReturnOfTheSonOfSUAPYG said:

 

Not sure, but there's really no such thing as "too early" for announcements of this type. I think the distraction element is minimal (at least based on chatting with a former student who's currently marching).

I was thinking more of distraction as fans, alumni, etc are spending time talking about the change instead of the current show. No idea what life is like on tour so didn’t think that much about it so thanks for the info 

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1 hour ago, billj said:

Given this day and age, I don't understand the uproar about Scouts officially declaring going co-ed. Sorry, no offense, but people need to get over it. This is the way of world, people. And news flash: Boy Scouts allow female members, gasp!

They've had female members in, what, 3 or 4 past years? Did people pull their financial support, mock corps leadership, and express their outrage each of those years? Or maybe it was ok for the years they made finals, but not ok last year?

And I didn't don't want to hear "it was different". It wasn't. 

Director Bill Howard's young daughter skipping around the field as Alice in Wonderland in pre-DCI 1971;  a trained dancer featured in the Carmen show in 2005; and a featured flugelhorn soloist in the 2018 disaster. A single female guest performer three times in 80+ years is no different than a fully co-ed corps with girls in every section? Not saying the change will be bad, but it's no different than 150+ guys and one guest female performer? That's ridiculous.

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14 minutes ago, WarriorHal said:

Director Bill Howard's young daughter skipping around the field as Alice in Wonderland in pre-DCI 1971;  a trained dancer featured in the Carmen show in 2005; and a featured flugelhorn soloist in the 2018 disaster. A single female guest performer three times in 80+ years is no different than a fully co-ed corps with girls in every section? Not saying the change will be bad, but it's no different than 150+ guys and one guest female performer? That's ridiculous.

On the field, how will it be different in any relevant sense?  Marching, playing, dancing and climbing on props are skills that persons of any gender can develop.

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36 minutes ago, WarriorHal said:

Director Bill Howard's young daughter skipping around the field as Alice in Wonderland in pre-DCI 1971;  a trained dancer featured in the Carmen show in 2005; and a featured flugelhorn soloist in the 2018 disaster. A single female guest performer three times in 80+ years is no different than a fully co-ed corps with girls in every section? Not saying the change will be bad, but it's no different than 150+ guys and one guest female performer? That's ridiculous.

Not really. The sooner people get over this, the better because I seriously doubt this decision will be undone.  

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2 hours ago, ftwdrummer said:

Jumping back to this because I had a sudden thought along those lines--to a certain extent, what he's describing with Madison is basically what they did at Crossmen his first year (the second time around), in 2011--throwback show with enjoyable music that stylistically was a Crossmen-back-to-being-Crossmen show.

They finished 17th that year, but popped into finals in 2012.

I don't think it necessarily will work that way this time, but I can see why they might think it's the way to go.

The tough thing about Scouts is, their historical identity was about masculinity, not the type of shows they did. Cavaliers seem to have moved on from the whole gender thing to just being Cavaliers—but for whatever reasons, Scouts alums still insist on defining Scouts in terms of history and male-ism.

Lots of people mocked Bluecoats when they first ran out onto the field in their squiggle costumes. But they aren’t laughing now.

Scouts, like all entities, have to find their identity. Fwiw I think they were dead in the water by playing to the whole “Superman suit” crowd.

There is still a huge contingency of Miami Fl football fans who insist that The U continue to be defined as it was in the 80s: a bizarre collection of thugs, criminals and social misfits who were only at Miami to play football. But that era is gone and time marches on. 

Edited by MikeRapp
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