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as football programs end, Drum Corps will march on


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13 hours ago, tedrick said:

 Makes you wonder if drum corps and marching bands should start laying out their performance fields without yard markers - the grid iron could become irrelevant!

GH wouldn't be happy if this really started happening, but then again, he probably wouldn't be involved.

13 hours ago, xandandl said:

Already started in the Northeast for high schools as numbers of high school participants in tackle football dwindle. CT alone saw a dozen less football programs in the past two years.

Looks like the Moms wishes/decisions are taking place around the country.  Mrs. Ghost put her foot down with our twin sons around 87 about no football,   (Moms who are/were nurses had/have a little more juice.) but they had their injuries with soccer, baseball, and ice hockey.  At least none were life threatening.  Just hope the two concussions one son had don't come back to haunt him.

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1 hour ago, craiga said:

The band I teach (South Portland, Maine)  does have Class A football, but we have nothing to do with it.  We don't go to games, perform at halftimes, or even have a pep band.  We have a Gold Medal Winning Marching Band (16 years in a row), arguably the State's best Concert Band and Wind Ensembles, Jazz Ensembles, Gold Medal Winter Guard, and now a brand new Winter Percussion Ensemble.

We don't do sports band..ever. As My band director likes toi say, we are not a juke box for the jocks.

And yes, a dozen Maine high schools this past fall went to 8 man football due to lack of interest, so it may be a matter of time...at least outside of Texas and Ohio. 🙂

That’s too bad that you can’t seem to see how the whole benefits from the sum of the parts. The football team / sports teams should appreciate the band. The band should appreciate the school spirit it brings to the sports teams. The school should see how all groups benefit each other. And these groups should support each other. Sounds like a toxic environment. 

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15 hours ago, tedrick said:

That is really neat!

I think the activity is ready to move on from the grid iron - I would rather just see a performing surface with no yard lines -

no tarps please - let's just have a performing surface "field" with no striping - or at most a soccer pitch --

Well if they stand all performance on props, yardlines aren't really needed are they?

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In the school district here in NJ where I used to live and teach one of the bands (two high schools in town), the smaller school, West Windsor-Plainsboro HS North, lost its varsity ffootball team a couple of years ago. WWP-South still had a varsity team, though smaller and smaller. Now the two are one combined team, though both schools are still running marching bands.

The huge change in ethnic makeup of the district has resulted in fewer and fewer students playing sports like football. The district is one of the top academic districts in the state, and some sports like swimming and tennis remain strong, both boys and girls teams on both.

The music programs are huge as well, though at both schools marching band being voluntary has always struggled to attract members. The quality was usually decent, but both bands were always in USBands class I or II Open while I was there once the second school opened. Each school has multiple orchestras and multiple concert bands, all of them excellent. But football? Not any more. Our WW-P South team as recently as 2007 was in the state football finals at Rutgers...now if they win a game with the combined team its a lot.

 

 

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14 hours ago, jeffmolnar said:

As a Texan:

yyUxLsY.gif

Football isn't going anywhere.

 

Rest of the country seems to be though.

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1 hour ago, HockeyDad said:

That’s too bad that you can’t seem to see how the whole benefits from the sum of the parts. The football team / sports teams should appreciate the band. The band should appreciate the school spirit it brings to the sports teams. The school should see how all groups benefit each other. And these groups should support each other. Sounds like a toxic environment. 

lol at my college there wasn’t any problem between the team and band. Team had so-so seasons and new players got told to lay off the band as they were the ones supporting the team the most when the team sucked

Edited by JimF-LowBari
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2 hours ago, Ghost said:

GH wouldn't be happy if this really started happening, but then again, he probably wouldn't be involved.

Looks like the Moms wishes/decisions are taking place around the country.  Mrs. Ghost put her foot down with our twin sons around 87 about no football,   (Moms who are/were nurses had/have a little more juice.) but they had their injuries with soccer, baseball, and ice hockey.  At least none were life threatening.  Just hope the two concussions one son had don't come back to haunt him.

How is life worth living without hockey?  Asking for a friend. 

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