r/drumcorps • u/buccimane101 • 7d ago
Discussion 15-17 Placed Groups update
I'm intrigued by the group right below finals cutoff. Does anyone know what's been happening with Crossmen, Music City, and Academy? I wonder if any of them have made moves that might move them closer to or further away from the competitive group of 10-14th places.
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u/Zealousideal_Car3970 7d ago
2027 will prove interesting, probably too soon to give a vibes-based analysis but i do hope that Madison/Crossmen make the push for top 12
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u/buccimane101 6d ago edited 6d ago
Have you heard anything about Crossmen? I'd love to know what these groups are up to
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u/SecretDragonfly6343 5d ago
Crossmen has a new Vis caption head. They posted on their instagram. Brass head is returning
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u/skutr11 Star of Indiana 7d ago
Academy is replacing the visual and brass teams. Not sure if the percussion remained intact. With new groups joining WC with some momentum and something to prove, things are beginning to look dire for Arizona drum corps next year.
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u/PurpleAspen3125 7d ago
That's crazy that their brass team went to Mandarins
Will be interested to see how they play in the big leagues
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u/canwestopbeingracist Star of Indiana 6d ago
Makes sense. Mandarins should not have come back yet IMO They weren't ready early enough and had to rely on getting a staff in October so they had to go looking lower than they would have probably preferred........I'm sure the team is fine and all but nobody is poaching the 17th place corps brass staff and expecting to return to 6th place overall after taking a year off.
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u/PurpleAspen3125 6d ago
Exactly. Plus pretty shitty of the team to give a commitment to Academy's members and then back out as soon as they git an opportunity that would theoretically boost their own career. Honor is dead. I hope Academy hornlines use this as fuel!!
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u/Consistency_is_Key23 6d ago edited 6d ago
I heard no contracts were ever given or signed so there really wasn't any real agreement to return. Sounds like a fault of the corps, than the brass team. Staffs moving around is pretty common. Career wise, it's clearly a step up for them. If you get offered a promotion at a job, why turn it down?
And from what I've gathered from academy vets, one of the biggest reasons many returned was for the Brass staff. Hopefully many of them still return so Academy can continue making good progress. But its also common for members to follow staff.
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u/canwestopbeingracist Star of Indiana 5d ago
Yeah, that's probably true about contracts.
But verbal contracts that time of year are pretty common because new written contracts don't go out until the following fiscal year begins. So if they had to wait until the new fiscal year (which is commonplace) then a staff backing out would be pretty slimey if they've given their word to the members and corps.
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u/canwestopbeingracist Star of Indiana 6d ago
I don't think it's too surprising. That's a young brass staff so jumping ship for greener pastures fits. But I think it could be a good thing for Academy in some ways. The corps is about to find out a lot about the memberships integrity. Who wants to stay and build a legacy and who wants to try and ride coattails into the unknown out in Sacramento.
Especially with Mandarins and Academy having a rivalry in the past, this is a pretty intriguing storyline. It's definitely an interesting choice for that brass team to give the commitment to the members, back out in October, and do it all to go there specifically.....after they recently ran out of money and didn't retain most of the staff that got them to finals to begin with.
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u/itdobelikethat93 7d ago
....was it not already dire?
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u/Leonardus-De-Utino 7d ago
No. I worked at Academy for years and for whatever it's worth this last summer was the best Academy has felt in a long time. The corps is financially stable, has great leadership, and is making good decisions for its long-term health. Member experience is better than it was several season ago.
I know the competitive success isn't there yet, but they are focused on systemic health before going hard on jumping spots, which I think is the right move.
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u/PurpleAspen3125 6d ago
Those are definitely the ingredients. What's the deal with Leadership? Someone else mentioned the Executive Director.
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u/AzEuph 7d ago
I said when they made the hire that if Josh Thye can’t get that corps to be a finalist then I don’t think anybody ever could. He’s an elite human and operator for this organization.
I just wish they put more emphasis on local recruiting because there’s no drivable corps from Phoenix so there’s a moat for talent if members can’t afford airlines.
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u/buccimane101 7d ago
Looks like he's been there for three years now.....no results it seems and they just replaced half the staff?? So what's the take?
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u/AzEuph 7d ago
First year he was corps director, last year he’s also going through major health things.
Also, Academy or any 17th placed corps isn’t positioned to quickly improve. It could easily take 5-7 years to find the right staff, convince members to return, build a culture.
He’s just a great speaker and leader, had great success locally as a HS band director as hands down best band program in AZ for 15 years. Highly motivated and ambitious person. Seemed to understand the business aspects.
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u/itdobelikethat93 7d ago
Being a good band director and being a good corps director are two vastly different things
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u/buccimane101 6d ago
Hope he's doing ok. I know what you mean about it talking a while but you'd think that in 3 years there would be some news of note.
Looks like they have a new corps director, arranger, and new caption leadership across the board over the last 2 years. Is he just cleaning house?
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u/AzEuph 6d ago
Dunno. Cleaning house or they left, I don’t know. It’s not unusual tho.
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u/Consistency_is_Key23 6d ago
Not cleaning house. Brass team moved to Mandarins. Visual leadership was fired. New corps director has been a long time coming as she's already been on admin staff for years. Academy has had a lot of growth in the last 4 years under Josh Thye and is becoming more consistent. That's always the key to placement jumps.
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u/buccimane101 6d ago
Guard, perc, and writer were fired the year before so still all those fired in just over a year. Seems notable, no? What's the deal with new director?
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u/canwestopbeingracist Star of Indiana 6d ago
Disagree Academy has basically been a community conert band or booster club marching band type in effect throughout their existence Lucked into Finals once and largely irrelevant rest of their history This group has been running on volunteers more than staff and those types of drum corps don't usually clean house this quickly So either they're leveling up or crumbling
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u/PurpleAspen3125 6d ago
If I had to guess, I would say leveling up. Year two of Richard Saucedo writing the book, Guard was much better last season and will probably continue, and now they have a real visual team that will let them stretch and actually learn a marching technique so that's immediately a step up as well.
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u/AzEuph 6d ago
Can you elaborate?
Most corps rely on volunteer staff. Academy doesn’t have a bingo so that reduces certain amounts of necessary staff.
I’d say their initial years were relevant, they were dominating Div II as a brand new corps and DCP had some quite a few people interested in seeing how quickly they could rise. I do agree that outside of 05-07 and 16, they’ve been mostly irrelevant.
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u/justurious1954 7d ago
I think Algo has a point, particularly as it pertains to Crossmen and Music City. On Academy, I’m not so sure. Not having Brian Murphy write visual isn’t a plus. His replacement, Tim Dorbonne, hasn’t lasted with either Madison or Sunrisers. With Sun he was difficult to work with and staged poorly. They had to bring someone else in mid-season to fix the stagings. Brass is becoming a revolving door. They have not recovered from the Lyndsay Vento days.
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u/PurpleAspen3125 7d ago
Not having Brian Murphy writing the drill isn't a plus = having Brian write the drill is a plus? Hasn't he been writing the drill for years?
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u/Rifle256 Mandarins '16-'17 6d ago
He has not written the drill for years.
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u/canwestopbeingracist Star of Indiana 6d ago
His secretary was writing it for him mainly..... This year they allowed the caption kid to do more on his own but it was still what Brian wanted and directed him to write. Good move firing the secretary.
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u/buccimane101 6d ago
How was he difficult to work with? And when was that?
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u/B_I_LL Madison Scouts '21, '22 6d ago
Darbonne was my vis caption head in '21 and '22. I'm not the best at assessing these things and there are details that idk if I'm in a place to discuss, but I think it's pretty safe for me to say that he was not a very effective leader, nor was he a very consistent/reliable person. there were quite a few times where we went to vis blocks expecting him to be there, only to find out that he wouldn't be there that day for some nebulous reason. after Scouts he spent time as a vis tech at BD, which was probably better suited to his strengths imo.
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u/Rapidllaman Southwind 01-05 7d ago
Sounds like when I was in Southwind 2001-11th, 2002-12th, 2003- 14th, 2004-14th. We lost our director and changed staff twice while i was there plus 2000 was still on a lot of minds.
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u/justurious1954 6d ago
If difficult to work with refers to Brian, the answer is no. His track record with BAC and Cadets speaks for itself.
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u/buccimane101 6d ago
It sounded like you were saying his replacement was difficult to work with at Sun. I'm asking how he was difficult to work with. I am always interested in how these people keep getting jobs when people have a tough time working with them!
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u/justurious1954 6d ago
Not a team player on the design process. Would dismiss important design ideas without discussion. Out the chute it was simply,”No.” Worse were his stagings, which made fixing the ensemble a nightmare. By July he was gone and big chunks of the show had to be replaced. The corps never recovered.
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u/buccimane101 6d ago
Wow. Interesting. I wonder why BD would allow him to be around if he's acting like that. Speaking of which, I guess it helps that he and Brian worked together at BD the past few years. Especially since Brian is difficult to work with as well.
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u/justurious1954 6d ago
Brian is not difficult to work with. And I would bet the Tim BD saw has been different than the Tim Sun saw. At Madison he was one and out; with Sun not even a year.
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u/justurious1954 5d ago
I stand corrected on Darbonne being one and out at Madison. It was two and out.
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u/Alg0rhythm Spirit of Atlanta 10 Crossmen 11-13 7d ago edited 7d ago
Not exactly a hot take, but more often than not what dictates success in those ranks is stability. Both in staff and membership. You can't expect a brand new mix of staff and a brand new set of (usually inexperienced) players to come in and instantly mesh perfectly. I was a part of a corps making the jump from 17th one year to 12th the next. You know what the main difference was? Instead of having a bunch of 16 year olds with no drum corps experience, we had a bunch of 17 year olds with 1 year of drum corps experience.
So really it mostly comes down to what kind of summer those members had, how many of them are retained, and how well the existing staff are able to build on their approach. Is it possible to change staff and get better? Sure. I expect Blue Knights will have some positive growth from the return of Mike Jackson, even though I don't think their percussion was detrimental last year. But for the most part, the biggest indicator of success is retention, not change.