Liam Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 (edited) With due respect;1970 US population, under 18 years of age - 69 million 2005 US population, under 18 years of age - 73.5 million Source: U.S. Census Bureau web site Right -- I was going to comment on this, too. Again, be careful of statistics -- while it's true that Baby Boomers are EACH having less kids than than their parents (on average), the total number of the Baby Boom generation is so much higher, so the TOTAL number of babies born to them still outnumbers those of their parents. (edited to make punctuation clearer.) Edited October 5, 2006 by Liam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Thunder Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 Drum corps is not unlike many organizations that have seen shrinking numbers of participants over the decades. If we did a census on Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs, and other youth groups a similar pattern of membership numbers occurs over the last four decades. As has been noted many times before, there are a multitude of things for people, young and old to do with their lives in 2006 that didn't exist in 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996......or even May of 2006. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 Drum corps is not unlike many organizations that have seen shrinking numbers of participants over the decades.If we did a census on Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs, and other youth groups a similar pattern of membership numbers occurs over the last four decades. As has been noted many times before, there are a multitude of things for people, young and old to do with their lives in 2006 that didn't exist in 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996......or even May of 2006. Add Little League...... Plus decline of many older sponsers - American Legion, VFW, Churchs..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glory Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 This census shows 483 active junior corps for the 1972 season. There were quite a few more than that for the '71 season. It seems that many junior corps went inactive prior to that first DCI era season of 1972. Well what do you know? Corps disappeared in large numbers, and no one can blame DCI. HH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glory Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 1976: 396 junior corps1986: 130 junior corps 1996: 127 junior corps 2006: 65 junior corps So 67% disappear during the "glory" years of the late 70s and early 80s. If that doesn't shout demographics, nothing does. HH PS: Loving the backlash in this thread. No mercy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 (edited) As has been noted many times before, there are a multitude of things for people, young and old to do with their lives in 2006 that didn't exist in 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996......or even May of 2006. Yes, and certainly for girls. As recently as the late 70's (maybe even 80's), teenage and college age girls didn't have nearly the activities to choose from as they do now. High school and college spports programs were mech less or non-existent at most schools. There were few neighborhood softball leagues, little leagues, etc for girls that there were for boys at that time. Even before the soccer exposion, boys always had lots more sports activities than did girls. Granted, there were other things for girls to do (Girl scouts, etc), but certainly boys had more possibilities than girls. The increase in activities for girls in the 80's and 90's thru to today has to be responsible for some of what's happened with drum corps. Edited October 5, 2006 by Liam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonnyboy Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 I think the number I read was 440 active corps in the US in 1971, just before DCI. Most of them, as you say, were local-based. The top few were the ones who drew members from other smaller corps in their area...the equal in concept of div I today. In 71 Garfield had members from all sorts of NY metro area smaller corps. Very few came from the town of Garfield itself, one reason they had not much to do with us.Today....10,000+ HS bands, some percentage of them competing...more than drum corps EVER had at one time...USSBA alone has twice that 440 competing...and that is just one band circuit. The competitive bands replaced the small local corps in providing the competitive experience for tens of thousands of HS students. Mike Thank you Mike, well put. We can't look to one statistic "active drum corps" and point to a decline in the activity. Times change people. Can you actually compare a 1966 drum corps to a 2006 DIV 1 touring corps? If you put a truck full of equipment and uniforms into the hands of a town, how many kids would join? Kids that aren't already doing marching band or school sports? Does anyone actually think that because X number of corps have died in the past years, that means the rest will? So we went from 1000 after WW1 to 400 in 1970 to 55 today. Does that tell us in ten years they are all gone? If I was smarter I could go on and on, but I'm not. I just think that you are trying to compare apples to organges when you compare 1970 to 2006 drum corps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bishtom Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 (edited) Numbers have gotten smaller...but just how good were ALL of those 396 junior corps? Edited October 5, 2006 by bishtom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 (edited) Numbers have gotten smaller...but just how good were ALL of those 396 junior corps? All long as the kids enjoyed what they did and took pride in themselves did it really matter? Hey kid, your Little League team sucks! Go home and play Nintendo instead. <**> Edited October 5, 2006 by JimF-xWSMBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IllianaLancerContra Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 I have been saying THAT on various corps forums for a long time!Corps have always died out along the way...only in the 50's and 60's others in the same general area sprung up to take their place. Today...not so easy. Not sure how much could have been done...IMO it was primarily changing times that caused the decline in numbers. Mike In late 1960s-72 the draft also played a big roll by taking a fair amount of membership. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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