Monday Memory: When You Carried the Pit on your Shoulders
Back in the early days of Bluecoats, the drum corps front ensemble looked very different than it does today. Actually, there was NO front ensemble. During the early 1970s everything on the field had to be carried and nothing was “grounded” anywhere. Tympani? Carried it. Marimba? Carried it. Chimes? Yep, carried it! By the end of the decade corps were allowed to “ground” a few items, but they still had to be carried on and off the field. By the mid 1980s the rules changed and a boundary off the field was allowed for “pit” equipment but on-field performers weren’t allowed, at first, to enter and leave this area between the 30s and off the front sideline.
Canton Repository news of the Bellevue show in 1978.
Recently Rick Brown, a member in the 1970s, shared a picture and story about that pit experience in the Bluecoats: “So many times my students just laughed when I suggested we used to have to wear a xylophone,” Brown shared, saying that he would show the picture to students as proof, “and that I once had hair.”
That picture he shared was from the front page of the Bellevue, Ohio, newspaper the morning after Bluecoats won the show. As Brown would tell his students, “The rules were you couldn't drop anything. Ground it, yes, as we were grounding Vibes permanently, and the tympanis set down. But you couldn't drop something.” What if something, like a drum stick broke? “If a mallet head came off, without any place to put it, you had to carry it through the show to the end zone,” he said. The penalty was for dropped equipment on the field, the end zone was out of bounds.
Rick recalls the story behind the great front page photo:
Rick Brown in 1978 creatively avoiding a penalty
We took a penalty at some show over a dropped mallet. So if I broke a mallet head off, I had to carry the stick remaining. I had no pouch or bag on my xylo. In fact, I had jettisoned anything that we didn't ABSOLUTELY need, because that was one heavy xylophone. So the busted stick went to the last place to carry it.
- Rick Brown, 1978 member
Rick remembers the 1978 season with fondness. “In 1978 we had a hot competition summer with several Great Lakes Association corps. We had an exciting show, best Bluecoats to date.” The corps had been active just since 1972 and only fielding a competitive show the four seasons prior to 1978. The crowning jewel of the 1978 season was winning the Class A Championship at the American International Open in Butler, Pa. “We won in Butler and thought we were on the way with DCI, but Denver was just another disappointment,” he said.
Bluecoats drew the worst prelims time, going on as the very first corps at Denver. The other corps they had been competitive with that summer? Most of them performed the next day. Despite the poor draw, the corps still finished 28th place, just two points away from making “associate member” status of Top 25.
Asked if going on with that pack would have made a difference, Brown said, “It would have changed everything. If we could have been slotted with peers we would have compared very favorably.“ Recalling his judging days, he said, “Having judged long blocks before, and multiple days, you end up overlooking teams, because there isn't time to remember.” But looking back at 1978 all these years later? “We had a fun summer!”
