You Win in November: A Theory

[2muchcoffeeman]

It's November. Winning time.

I don't mean that, in November, you scratch out that extra 0.05 in a subcaption that you need to move up from 2nd on Friday to 1st on Saturday. I mean that your general competitive finish -- a medal, or top 6, or somewhere in 7-12 -- in August is, for the most part, determined during the previous November. By Christmas, your finish is baked in.

In November, the lumber and framing of your show design is in place. The paint and the curtains will come later, but for now, you know the floorplan.

In November, you reap the talent that has come to your door, talent that was motivated to audition (or return) mostly by the quality of the show design you had on the field just 3 months ago. Your show this summer is your most potent engine for improvement next summer. This is the moment when you capitalize on that.

Those are the big variables: Show design [D] and audition numbers [N], which is correlated with talent level. D x N = placement next August

The theory assumes:

• Instruction quality is more or less evenly distributed across the activity. A member is going to learn/grow/mature as much at a No. 16 corps as she will at a No. 3 corps.
• The trajectory of corps progression, from raw first-rehearsal product to final show of the season, is parallel across all corps. We see charts every season about how you can basically tack 20 points on to the score of the first show of the season to determine where each corps will end up on the second weekend of August. Every corps has a similar season delta.
• The judging is to the sheets and consistent across corps. The corps will make in-season adjustments to D to maximize the judges' reward, and judges will in fact respond to the adjustments to D. Some corps will adjust more brilliantly than others, and the scores will move accordingly; this links back to the primacy of D as a determining variable. The vagaries of judging might make the difference between 7th place and 8th, but won't dislodge you from your rightful neighborhood.
• Corps admin quality is broadly uniform. This may be the weakest assumption of the lot.

From Christmas forward, then, it's just executing to plan. If your food program is a shambles, or your corps gets sick for 3 weeks, or your member experience is toxic and repellant, you can sink your season for sure. But if you can manage those basics with median competence, D x N will determine where you'll be 9 months from now.

This is the time to watch what's happening.

A theory for the hot-stove league.

Edited November 2, 2022 by 2muchcoffeeman

[OldSnareDrummer]

I'm not totally convinced you can win a championship in November, but I do believe you sure can lose one. Or did we just say the same thing? 

[Jurassic Lancer]

Well, Bloo’s design weekend is Labor Day, and they only start auditions in November, finalizing the corps proper in January, and Guard in April-May, so I don’t think so. 

[greg_orangecounty]

Unless you're Blue Devis.  They probably had their 2023 show in the can a year ago, and are now working on 2024's winning show.  

[Weaklefthand4ever]

On 11/2/2022 at 8:27 PM, Jurassic Lancer said:

Well, Bloo’s design weekend is Labor Day, and they only start auditions in November, finalizing the corps proper in January, and Guard in April-May, so I don’t think so. 

I would also say that for the BD's and Bloo's of the world, they have the concept of writing to the captions down to such a science, that you could almost spin "The wheel of random show themes" and they would still have a top 3 design pretty much in the bag within a few weeks time (on paper at least.) They're just THAT good at what they do and they absolutely maximize their talent. It's extraordinary. 

[Slingerland]

I believe this is largely true. With the preponderance of scoring late season now tied to decisions made by the adults on the design team (no one in a 9th or 10th place show could have performed them better and made them into a 5th place show, for example), it's the choices made in the design process that set a level for top achievement.

Recruiting for 2023 is already pretty much a foregone conclusion: the kids auditioning for Bluecoats won't be the same ones auditioning for Mandarins who won't be the same ones auditioning for Pacific Crest, so the staffs have some ideas of what talent levels to expect for next summer, and will design up to that level. The challenge for the corps in the bottom tiers is to teach the members they get as well as they possibly can until they can convince judges in the execution captions to give them enough benefit of a doubt that it will reflect on the design-intensive captions and, hopefully, their designers step up their games for the following season or they make improvements with who they hire to design.  

What happened in the 70s and early 80s with corps like BD and SOA coming from nowhere to be contenders in 2 or 3 years will never happen again, as long as the judging community and designers are so insular, but that's the game as it is now, so yeah, the decisions made in fall really determine what happens next August.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Slingerland

[2muchcoffeeman]

On 11/2/2022 at 3:37 PM, OldSnareDrummer said:

I'm not totally convinced you can win a championship in November, but I do believe you sure can lose one. Or did we just say the same thing? 

It's possible to lose (not just a championship, but whatever placement you're shooting for) at any time. In October, you can design a crappy show. In December, you can mishandle your callbacks and alienate a bunch of your vets. In March, you can hire the wrong food director. In May, you can fail to do proper backgrounding of a toxic visual instructor. July, you can botch a whistleblower report. In August, you can rewrite your closer.

The theory assumes that corps admin will perform to the median in these kinds of things. Basic competence; no egregious sins of omission or commission.

With those assumptions, yes, the theory is that your ultimate placement in August 2023 is determined in November 2022. That's because the most influential factors in the competitiveness product are design quality and audition interest, and those are most in play at the start of the audition season, i.e., November.

Edited November 20, 2022 by 2muchcoffeeman

[C.Holland]

Success, and how much you can achieve is decided by November.  Having talent that you don’t need to teach how to perform is the second part of the equation.  The less teaching of means and methods you need to do the better the group will be. 
 

You don’t have a successful group if you’re standing on a field in July asking yourselves… “what should we add here? “

[Ediker]

I agree with OP’s theory for determining the tier that a corps will achieve in August. Winning though is always a multi-year effort.
BD currently has a better than 2 out of 3 chance of winning on any given year, which is an achievement beyond merely winning. 

[IllianaLancerContra]

Well, as it is now December I guess it is too late for Corps to win in 2023 unless they did it a month ago.   Need to mark the calendar earlier next year.