84BDsop Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 Jeff/Morgan....WOW!!!! The things you learn 20 years later! I remember the rain during prelims (and your brass huddled under a large tree), but I had never heard about the late arrival to the gate! NOW it makes sense. BTW, Jeff...you looked great on the Rose Parade...What a salute!!! And the classic SCV uni! Ahhhhh....the memories! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard87 Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 Hey, nice to see the 1984 Vanguard getting some love. I must say that of the five years I was in SCV, I'm the most proud of the 84 corps, even more than 87 (but just barely), because we came so far over the course of the year (whereas the 87 corps was competition-ready from, oh about November or so). Morgan and Jeff (hey, this is turning into a bari line reunion) have covered a lot of that year's events (Tim's speech--what a moment that was). Let me just add a few things. We were young--comically so. Of the 64 horns, there were five vets, maybe a dozen second-year people, and all the rest were rookies. The average age of the horn line was well under 18 (a lot of the 1984 rookies would end up aging out in 1987). Prelims--Someone asked if the youth of the corps and the lack of vets caused us to wilt. I think just the opposite, actually. We were too young and stupid to realize what placing fourth at prelims did to our chances at finals. I think with more vets we could have conceivably thrown in the towel. I was walking back to the stadium after our prelims performance, just passing Andy (the DM) going in the opposite direction when they annnounced our score. We both stopped in our tracks and listened. Andy was crestfallen, and I said "Wow, looks like scores are going to be down tonight." Andy didn't say a word, but he had a look on his face like "My God you are naive." Early on, we were bad--real bad. Morgan already noted that the staff felt like they had to dumb down the show for us. But the thing is, at the time they were writing the drill and arranging the charts, they had no choice. It was completely the sensible thing to do. Did I mention we were bad? The funny thing is, competitively we had by far the best season, beginning to end, in corps history up to then (the criterion being, of course, how many times we beat BD--and its certainly not because they were having an off year). That's because we underwent an amazing transformation at the Memorial Day camp. It was like a light bulb went on over our collective head. A lot of that, of course, had to do with the, shall we say, stern words Jeff Pearson had for us (Jeff was one of the two vets in the baritone line). I can't remember anything he actually said in that speech (care to remind us, Jeff?), but it sure was effective. I remember the non-rookies in the baritone line, especially (me and Steve Escalera and John Culala) were just fuming the rest of the camp. I also remember after the last run-through on Monday of the camp Rick South, Tim, and GR smiling at each other like "Hey, maybe they won't embarrass themselves." The slammin' pants--I remember the day GR announced we were getting the white pants, and somebody (Dave Canty?) modeled the prototype. Overall, the reaction ranged from skepticism to loathing (with me on the loathing end). The fact that we were going to debut them at Pacific Procession was very hush-hush, and to keep things top-secret we warmed up at the corps hall, changing into the white pants on the buses on the way to the stadium. The buses pulled up right next to the stadium, parking on the grass in a triangle formation with the bus doors facing in. We got out of the buses, and looking around at each other in that triangle, we suddenly realized that on grass, in an ensemble, the white pants rocked. Amazingly, we had never all worn the whites at the same time before then. I still think the green pants looked better on individuals, but on grass, all together, the whites were sharp. Oh, one other thing, Morgan mentioned the french horn goddess Kristen, so let me just add two words--Maria Petrini (mmm...). Bill Thomas SCV 83-87 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
84Cadet Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Wow! Thanks for sharing all of those fantastic stories. Sam and I tend to talk a lot about the 1984 Garfield/BD stuff, but it is REALLY nice to hear what some of the Vanguard people remember about the summer of 1984. I certainly remember the "slammin' pants." Our uniforms were just rags. And as Sam likes to point out, my uniform was older than I was. Dirty and smelly does not even begin to describe it. Anyway, I would have liked to have had just ONE nice uniform, but to actually have a choice of what pants to wear on any given night was too much. It made me SO jealous of SCV. Everything they did (and still do) was first class all the way while Garfield was just scraping by. We had a lot of shows with BD that summer but very few with Santa Clara. So whenever we had a show with the Vanguard it was a very big deal to all of us in Garfield. And we knew it was a big deal to SCV because they always wore their white pants when they saw us. I had no idea Santa Clara was so young in 1984. They seemed like every other SCV corps I had admired since the late '70s. They just had this aura about them. For whatever reason, we kept our distance from the Vanguard that year. All of us in Garfield had this notion that Santa Clara hated us. It is too bad because I never once spoke to an SCV member all summer. And that is a shame. I would have really liked to have told them how much I admired their corps and their show in 1984 -- especially their amazing drum solo and gorgeous horn line. Later that year I was honored to perform at the PASIC show in Ann Arbor with the Garfield cymbal section. Folks from the Santa Clara pit were there performing with Ralph. We finally got to hang with some of the Vanguard members and even perform a little bit together. It was an experience I will never forget and I was so happy that I was able to finally meet some of the people I had admired so much. I say this all of the time on the BD forum, but 1984 was a great year. All three of those corps could have easily won and nobody would have thought twice about it. We just got lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
84BDsop Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 It is too bad because I never once spoke to an SCV member all summer. See...there's an advantage to being such a rookie that you go up and meet "the enemy" I don't even remember HOW I met Nadia from your mello line...just thta it was at the Pt. Huron location. I got a fee dirty looks from the vet every time I taloked to her, but as I got those just for being me, it didn't really matter! *sigh* if only I hadn't lost her phone number...would you believe I actualy had it in my shako during finals??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
84BDsop Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Hey, nice to see the 1984 Vanguard getting some love. Dude....the push in Tender Land is soooooo tasty...I ####### LOVE it!! Possible my favorite old-school push of all time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketman Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 See...there's an advantage to being such a rookie that you go up and meet "the enemy" I don't even remember HOW I met Nadia from your mello line...just thta it was at the Pt. Huron location. I got a fee dirty looks from the vet every time I taloked to her, but as I got those just for being me, it didn't really matter!*sigh* if only I hadn't lost her phone number...would you believe I actualy had it in my shako during finals??? Dang Sam,, Spell check this thing? Rockitman ampssuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketman Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 It would have been pretty cool if SCV got a 98.1 in 1984. Uhhhh....nope! Then Sam couldn't ##### and moan about comming in second by a tenth. Rocketman ampssuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbl Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 (edited) With respect to 84 SCV. I do know that quite a few of their vets from 83 opted out on marching 84 so they could do the Olympic band down in LA. Perhaps the pressure of Prelims got to them without those vets. I don't recall. Vanguard had a great corps that year, beating every corps on the field. Not to mention the near dozen people who left SC for BD (and STILL did not win at Pacific Procession!) It was closer to two dozen, just look at the SCV 83 drumline and you can see most of the faces in the 84 BD line. A lot of SCV's score had to do at their placement at prelims. They were the first corps of the top 5 to go on that night. (We were second). There was almost three hours difference from when SCV went on to the Cadets. (I think the surprise has more to do with BD's score so close to Cadets with the time span that night than SCV's score and placement). All year long there was this issue in the way scores were calculated. The tick system was gone and many of the judges were still trying to figure out how to judge. There is a great possibility that SCVs score was kept down to allow for room above. The judges weren't willing to give SCV the score and not have room for other corps that were better later that night. Finals is probably the more accurate show for the season re-cap, because of when SCV went on and the improvement of their score from prelims. As a side issue about the judging look at the recap scores at finals for marching, ge, horns etc. in several of the categories there are ties because of the judges keeping the scores closer together than taking a chance and saying a corps was that much better than the others. Unless your a GE drum judge and you want to drop a first place drumline 11 points from the night before. Edited March 21, 2004 by jbl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomnoise Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 ...we just started chanting "BODY SLAM! BODY SLAM! BODY SLAM!" which was any point spread over 3... Quick correction - a body slam is a margin of victory that is 2.7 or higher. The term was coined after the Showdown at Warhawk in 1979. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomnoise Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 ...we just started chanting "BODY SLAM! BODY SLAM! BODY SLAM!" which was any point spread over 3... Quick correction - a body slam is a margin of victory that is 2.7 or higher. The term was coined after the Showdown at Warhawk in 1979. I agree with all - 1984 was a great year. Garfield was amazing to me from a design standpoint - one of those corps that will stand the test of time. SCV winning PP was a gas - and I still swear that I could feel the wind from the horns in the push in Tenderland. And BD - what can I say other than, I was in Lansdale for the BEST victory concert ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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