Finals

[Carl306]

First: my hats off to The Academy. Great corps, awesome people to talk to and hang out with, and I always loved going on right after them at shows because their tunes were such a hype to listen to. Well deserved title in my opinion.

Second: who really cares? It's done and over with!

[no_itsnotadash]

I thought Academy was a class act this season. On the field and off they were.

So Academy brush the haters off... keep up the good work!

[mello_laurel]

Everyone in D2, thanks for a great age-out. It was some wonderful competition, I got my arse kicked on a daily basis (I still have nightmares about sets 10-19), and I'm very happy about where we came out. Congrats Academy and Brown; my Lowelly Spartan friends, I love our back-and-forth, you drove me to be better at every rehearsal.

[rai-mello]

Div II and Div III did very well this year. Academy put on a great performance and so did the other finalists. Impulse, Revolution, and Raiders did very well this year. (on a personal note, could I read some posts that don't mention Academy? I've read about 5 pages of posts talking about Academy. Could someone change the subject to Div III? )

[dctrumpetgrlie04]

Hmm Div. III. I haven't seen any talk of Citations making it to semi-finals for the first time in over 20 or so years. So congrats to them! =) They've gotten so much better over the past years.

[leadsop97]

Indeed, the last time they made it past prelims was I think mid-80s sometime.

[Driver]

We just got our tickets for Pasadena in the mail today! Section 18 Row 37 Seats 1-3. I'm a band director and I need to move my camp which for the last who knows how many years has been on championships week. Anybody in AZ know any GOOD camps the last week in July in which it will not be blazingly hot outside. We've been near Heber at Shadow Pines.

Anyway...... GO West Coast!!!!!! BD needs to complete the sweep!

[Driver]

Try the Dome in Springerville/Eager . Academy has used the facility for the past two years. Great faciliites

[supersop]

just to clear some stuff up, I'm pretty sure most people aren't bagging on their performance quality. They are obviously great performers. From what I've read, and I may have misinterpreted it (and spelled that word wrong, hah) most people have just found flaws in their design. Nothing wrong with that, every corps has flaws. Everyone knows Academy's guard was weak. Was it what they were given or how they performed it or both? I don't know, I didn't see the show. But scores are scores. Spartans 19.6, ECJ 19.2, Academy 18.1. That's quite a large difference. and for those who think that their entire hornline was double tonguing, I'd like you to find me a group of 60 kids under the age of 21 who can all double tongue. I'm sure not everyone was doing it. They pulled it off, and well so kudos to them.

my only problem on here is when people go to extremes and say that they should have won by 3-4 points but the judges just won't do it. Magic won by 3 points in 02, and that's

who many people were comparing Academy to this year. It can happen, it has, but it didn't this year. When all corps are competitive, the scores tend to be lower. They were in division 1 this year. Saying Academy should have won by 3-4 points is like me saying Phantom should have won division 1 hands down because they had by far the most emotional performance I've ever seen live.

that is all I guess, and don't bash me for trying to make some sense. Instead of complaining about this and that, and putting down corps A or corps B, we should all try to remember that we just got back from a very draining season, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Try to congratulate corps for putting forth their best efforts instead of diminishing them by sounding like you know everything about drum corps and are smarter than thee judges so you should have been out therre making the call. I love you all.

I'm sure someone has hit on this because I haven't read the entire thread. That said, I would like to point you to the past. Let's look at a time in DCI History when D2/D3 corps were able to go head to head with D1 in Quarterfinals. I marched in an A-90/D2 corps from 86-88. The sheets haven't changed much. We had Div2/3 sheets back then as well. When quarterfinals hit, it was Div1 sheets.

Wednesday August 13, 1986

Madison WI DCI World Championships Class A/A60 Finals STADIUM: Camp Randall Stadium - University of Wisconsin DCI

Position Corps Score

CLASS A

1 Canadian Knights 94.600

2 Ventures 94.000

3 River City Railmen 83.400

4 20th Maine Regiment 80.400

CLASS A60

1 St. Francis Xavier Sancians 83.700

2 Northern Aurora 79.800

Using the A60 scores as a reference .. let's take a look at Quarterfinals........

15 Blue Knights 68.700

16 St. Francis Xavier Sancians 68.100

17 Malden Diplomats 67.800

18 Kingsmen 67.700

19 Glassmen 62.900

20 Railmen 62.600

21 Valley Fever 60.000

22 Northern Aurora 58.600

What I see is a 3.9 pt spread turning into a 9.5 pt spread. That's just one example. The fact is, the criteria for achievment in box 5 on Div2 is very different from the boxes on Div1 sheets. The way that a show is weighed and measured is very different. There are some years where the top 2 corps kept the same spread from Div2/3 Finals to Quarterfinals, but it usually opens up quite a bit. It's not a slap in the face to second place. It's not a way of keeping things close. It's scoring based on the criteria on the sheet. As the sheet changes... so does the score .. and so do the spreads.

I was in Northern Aurora. I missed a ton of sleep trying to figure out what happened back then. In the end, it was all relative. I wouldn't have remembered the scores now if I hadn't looked them up. All i know is, I had a great year. We took second and 33rd overall. The next year is was 2nd in A90 and 26th. Eventually the corps made top 25 and became a DCI member corps. It all played out as it should have in the end.

Congrats to all on a great season!!!