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Replacing Our Losses in Corps Numbers


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I think something that would help keep corps alive would be to makesure that championships are not on the west coast or the east coast but rather in the middle of the US. So from the 2008 season to 2018 I think there will be more corps coming into exisistance so that it is not as expensive... mostly Div II/III corps. BUt as they get good they can become div ones :)

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Well, you see Hopkins has already answered this question before...

BOA/DCI MERGER :laugh:

:P No, seriously, I think this is what he is going at. If DCI/BOA did merge it would replenish the number of "units" out there. Of course, that would suck, but I'm just saying... :sshh:

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I don;t think DCI and BOA will ever merge at least I pray they don't!

Actually, why not? I understand the reasons "why not" from an on-field perspective. But from a business organizational point of view, this really isn't that bad an idea. From a marketing, sponsorship, housing, recruiting, insurance, logistics, organizational efficiency point of view this makes a lot of sense. Of course, the challenge would be to keep the on field worlds and off field worlds seperate, but I would argue that we'll face that challenge anyway. (Already are, really).

Edited by Liam
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Well, first you must realize that "top" corps back then had a wider age distribution in their more locally-oriented, longer-term membership. Nobody had the near-exclusively college-aged membership of some of today's division I units. Also, no one did three weeks of all-days followed by eight straight weeks on the road. So depending on your perspective, you could say there were no corps of yesteryear comparable to division I today.

But to answer your question as best as I can, I'd say it was a roughly even split: one-third open-class competitors, one-third units that limited themselves to local, regional and/or class A contests, and one-third corps significantly younger, smaller and/or less experienced.

Good stuff! Love to hear more of the pre-DCI era history and comparison/contrast to today's corps (plural).

See, not an elitist--the best way to learn from history is to first know it. And I don't know much of the pre-DCI history.

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So even in 1971, there were only five top-5 corps.

Not sure what your point is. Of course there are only X number of corps at the "top", depending on your definition of "top". I believe the point others are making is that corps exchanged places back then, from top to bottom.

The point is that like today there were still only about the same number of corps with a legit shot at winning a big show when those corps attended. There seems to be an attitude that dozens of corps could jump in a take it all; that was just not true.

If that's what you mean by "tier", then my point is that there were no tiers back then.

As I showed, yes there were.

Four different winners among the six biggest shows - sounds pretty competitive to me.

Only if you were one of the 4 or 5 corps I mentioned, which is what I said.

Quite different, actually.

Your own Garfield Cadets defeated 27th twice and Blue Rock once in 1971. Argonne Rebels beat 27th and Kingsmen once each, and Troopers twice. Madison took SCV to task once, same with 27th, and twice beat Troopers. Blue Stars racked up two wins over Troopers. And the Cavaliers took SCV three times and Troopers twice.

Your next "tier" isn't separated either. Not only did Boston mix it up with your "second tier", they also beat 27th four times and Kingsmen once. Brassmen also caught 27th at one point. I think you get the idea - there was no "top 4", "top 5", "top 6", or top anything set in stone back then.

American Legion Nationals had Cavaliers, Muchachos and Belleville Black Knights among the challengers to Argonne. North American Open's headliners were Kilties, Argonne, Des Plaines Vanguard, Racine Scouts and Black Knights. In South Milwaukee, it was Madison, Cavaliers, Kilties, Des Plaines and Belleville yet again.

Thanks for proving my point. Yes, there were occasional upsets...we beat Blue Rock at the Shriners due to them receiving a penalty I think. Doesn't make the general point wrong. I was there.

True - none of your "top 5" attended those shows. But there were 100 corps competing in open-class. With that many more corps, some major shows took place concurrently, unlike the single set of focus shows DCI is relegated to now that there are under two dozen division I entrants.

Not relevant to this discussion. The point is that it just was not this huge free-for-all you are attempting to imply...there were still only a handful of truly world-class corps then, as now.

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Good stuff! Love to hear more of the pre-DCI era history and comparison/contrast to today's corps (plural).

See, not an elitist--the best way to learn from history is to first know it. And I don't know much of the pre-DCI history.

A lot of open class corps drew members from the smaller local corps in their area...just as today members come from the band world, though geography no longer has much of an impact.

In fact, the Garfield Plebes actually broke away from the Cadets to form the Epochs, a Garden State Circuit class 'B' corps, at least in part because few Plebes were ending up in the Cadets, since members were coming in from the many area corps.

The town of Garfield didn't really support us either, as few Garfield natives were actually marching with the corps in my era.

You would go to a local show on a Saturday night where the guy with the generator truck and temporary lights would create this hazy light on the field...the rest of the stadium was dark...and see all sorts of corps jackets from small corps. Like todays band kids the class 'B' corps members flocked to class 'A' shows.

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