Drum Corps AF Minisode: Member Safety – SCV

[contraguard05]

On 8/28/2025 at 3:05 PM, olddrummer34 said:

You know that corps didn't have medical staffs back then right? And that drum corps staff members are not medical professionals? Again, 2025 lense. Yes, it would be dealt with differently now. But this was 20+ years ago. Remember when a crown member BROKE THEIR LEG at finals because of an unaddressed injury? Who is cancelling those instructors or speaking out on a podcast about them. Matt Harloff is in that group remember? And BTW - the crown guy who BROKE HIS LEG now works for the corps. He clearly has a differently outlook about his injury in drum corps. 

I marched during the same time and had a "trainer" try to convince me my broken ribs were pulled muscles. The unwillingness of the trainer to recognize she was out of her depth along with the corps director refusing to let people rest or see the doctor contributed to people quitting, being sidelined longer than if they were allowed to heal, and many of us chose to age out elsewhere, myself included. 

That director is now in prison.

[perc2100]

On 8/28/2025 at 12:11 PM, Jeff Ream said:

so someone i marched with in the 90's....DCA no less....if someone had an injury, they called an ambulance or got the member to a medical facility. the 90's. in DCA. not DCI...weekend corps, half the time driving to our show sites, not living on a bus all summer. spare me the lense. if little old Westshore could do it, major DCI corps could do it too.

 

and the mentlaity you're displaying is why it took DCI so long to get this #### right.

FWIW in 1998, my age-out year in junior corps, myself and another drum line member, while on our morning run around the school campus with the rest of the percussion section, hit our heads when the section decided to run through a football tackling dummy wrack; we underestimated how tall we were I guess, and cracked our heads on the metal rack on top.  We were very quickly driven to a doctor or hospital or something, I don't remember, where we were given staples to close the wounds (one for him, three for me), told by the doctor to not march for a couple of days to ensure we didn't have concussions and hurt ourselves further via concussion complications, and then went back to the school site in time to watch the corps' final run through of the day in the stands.

So even in the late 1990's junior corps, our health & safety needs were taken care of (prior to that, I had a really bad leg issue that also got a look from a medical professional, and the rest of my summer including heavy pain killers for rehearsal & after performances, applied bandage wraps to help stabilize the injury, etc).

[perc2100]

On 8/28/2025 at 5:32 PM, greg_orangecounty said:

None of that should have ever happened to Ms. Yankee, or anyone else, and I'm glad she spoke out.  To this day some still have not for whatever reason.  I think she could have had an even wider audience but she needed to work on her delivery in my humble opinion.  

I wish her the best. 

I'll just say I've heard A LOT of awful things from the 80's-90's and earlyish 00's in regards to drum corps: from smaller Div, 2/Open Class corps to Champion-winning World Class corps.  I've heard first count descriptions of some awful staff experiences, of the indignant/unempathetic variety that led to injuries or making minor injuries worse, from verbal abuse in corps rehearsals (some I saw personally watching Top 3 corps in ensemble or sectional blocks), to sexual assault stuff.  MANY people I've talked to never officially reported anything, especially when they first notified other staffers or corps management only to be blown off completely.  There are a lot of silent victims, and I'm glad that the drum corps world has evolved enough where the majority know how awful all of that stuff is, and many are less-afraid to report now than they were BITD.  Things are still obviously not perfect, but I think they're inarguably a lot better than things used to be

[perc2100]

On 8/29/2025 at 1:39 PM, Sideways said:

I mean who didn’t march back in the 90s with three hour visual blocks and no water breaks?

You may be exaggerating, but I marched two years of drum corps in the late 1990's and don't recall ever having a rehearsal block where we didn't get enough water breaks.  Maybe I was lucky, but my Semifinalist corps that never made Finals took good care of members, at least in my experience the years I marched.

[mcjordansc]

7 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

Calling BS on that.  Even decades earlier, the touring corps (plural) I am familiar with made a point to have someone from a medical profession on the road with the corps.  Although at this point, I should ask - did Vanguard have any such resource in 2003-4-5?  I do not recall that being mentioned in the accounts of what went on in those years.

We had a corps mom who was a nurse traveling with us in the 70s. That was the first corps I marched with. We did not have a medical person traveling with us when I moved to my second, DCI finalist corps. The nurse was a lucky fluke as she doubled as a corps mom/chaperone. 

[OldSnareDrummer]

5 minutes ago, mcjordansc said:

We had a corps mom who was a nurse traveling with us in the 70s. That was the first corps I marched with. We did not have a medical person traveling with us when I moved to my second, DCI finalist corps. The nurse was a lucky fluke as she doubled as a corps mom/chaperone. 

That's the way we always did it. The same person that made your PB&J for dinner put a band aid on owies. 

Edited September 2, 2025 by OldSnareDrummer

[mcjordansc]

3 hours ago, perc2100 said:

I'll just say I've heard A LOT of awful things from the 80's-90's and earlyish 00's in regards to drum corps: from smaller Div, 2/Open Class corps to Champion-winning World Class corps.  I've heard first count descriptions of some awful staff experiences, of the indignant/unempathetic variety that led to injuries or making minor injuries worse, from verbal abuse in corps rehearsals (some I saw personally watching Top 3 corps in ensemble or sectional blocks), to sexual assault stuff.  MANY people I've talked to never officially reported anything, especially when they first notified other staffers or corps management only to be blown off completely.  There are a lot of silent victims, and I'm glad that the drum corps world has evolved enough where the majority know how awful all of that stuff is, and many are less-afraid to report now than they were BITD.  Things are still obviously not perfect, but I think they're inarguably a lot better than things used to be

As someone who marched in the 70s and very early 80s, I will say the stories you hear may be slightly exaggerated (I am not talking about sexual assault here - I am sure it happened, but I did not see it). The physical demands of the activity were far less extensive than what the kids need to do today. Heck, I know a few kids who gained weight during the summer. The staff was much smaller, and, looking through a 2025 lens, there was verbal abuse. But, that happened on the job and at school - it did not seem abnormal. Many staff members attended the Bobby Knight school of teaching. Sure, water breaks at times were withheld if practice was going poorly. We really had no one to report anything to - we were lucky if we talked to our parents once every couple of weeks, if at all.  But, other than grumbling, everyone seemed to accept it. I appreciate how the activity has evolved in terms of member safety and teaching methods, but for me, personally, I have no bad memories of drum corps in the '70s. 

[Terri Schehr]

1 hour ago, mcjordansc said:

As someone who marched in the 70s and very early 80s, I will say the stories you hear may be slightly exaggerated (I am not talking about sexual assault here - I am sure it happened, but I did not see it). The physical demands of the activity were far less extensive than what the kids need to do today. Heck, I know a few kids who gained weight during the summer. The staff was much smaller, and, looking through a 2025 lens, there was verbal abuse. But, that happened on the job and at school - it did not seem abnormal. Many staff members attended the Bobby Knight school of teaching. Sure, water breaks at times were withheld if practice was going poorly. We really had no one to report anything to - we were lucky if we talked to our parents once every couple of weeks, if at all.  But, other than grumbling, everyone seemed to accept it. I appreciate how the activity has evolved in terms of member safety and teaching methods, but for me, personally, I have no bad memories of drum corps in the '70s. 

I could have used a little better access to water but besides that, I had fun.

Our nurse was the mother of a cymbal player. 

[Jurassic Lancer]

6 minutes ago, Terri Schehr said:

I could have used a little better access to water but besides that, I had fun.

Our nurse was the mother of a cymbal player. 

What we needed in 27 more than anything was a mechanic for our busses.

[perc2100]

22 hours ago, mcjordansc said:

As someone who marched in the 70s and very early 80s, I will say the stories you hear may be slightly exaggerated (I am not talking about sexual assault here - I am sure it happened, but I did not see it). The physical demands of the activity were far less extensive than what the kids need to do today. Heck, I know a few kids who gained weight during the summer. The staff was much smaller, and, looking through a 2025 lens, there was verbal abuse. But, that happened on the job and at school - it did not seem abnormal. Many staff members attended the Bobby Knight school of teaching. Sure, water breaks at times were withheld if practice was going poorly. We really had no one to report anything to - we were lucky if we talked to our parents once every couple of weeks, if at all.  But, other than grumbling, everyone seemed to accept it. I appreciate how the activity has evolved in terms of member safety and teaching methods, but for me, personally, I have no bad memories of drum corps in the '70s. 

Ha; trust me when I tell you pretty much _any_ story I hear from the 70's & 80's I presume is almost certainly exaggerated 🤪

I will say that what was 'normal' rehearsal attitude/tenor/procedure in the 70's & 80's wasn't good just because it was the norm but I do totally get what you're saying.  And I'll also say that 'tough love' from an instructor isn't always a bad thing either, and what a younger gen student may think is bad attitude from a staffer may not be "bad" per say just may not effective for that individual.  And that's why nowadays in teaching we stress more individualized instruction methods in order to 'reach' as many as possible.