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Free Day? What About a Free Week?
Recently members of Bluecoats and many other drum corps celebrated the big San Antonio, Texas regional performance with a free day on Sunday. The San Antonio free day has become an iconic part of the modern drum corps landscape. Today, with members of any corps having friends or classmates marching in other corps across the country, the San Antonio free day is that chance to catch up in person.
Monday Memory: When There Was No Off-Season
Back in the earliest of days, the Bluecoats never heard of "Spring Training." We trained all year round, every week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings with the occasional weekend camp, and just transitioned our work based on the season. In the fall, we would focus on basics at the old Boys Club. In the early '70's, it was about teaching many of us to simply play our instruments. Some of us learned on ancient equipment (I started on a single piston bugle...google that!) and the marching staff would teach us all about posture and military-style marching. It was mostly a time to keep us together from the previous season and to welcome newcomers.
We've been Marching Forth for over 50 years!
As the activity celebrates “March Forth” and the hopes of a regular competitive season in 2022, Bluecoats have been doing this marching thing for well over 50 years. While the organization turns 50th this year, the marching roots were in town long before that. The people who would pen their names to the formation of Bluecoats had participated in the drum corps activity in Canton and Massillon dating back to the 1940s. Bringing a taste of that to the Boys Club was the kindling that would start the fire in 1972.
Happy Bloo Year's Eve!
There’s no better way to ring out the year 2020 by looking back at the previous decade and how BLOO it was! We’re proud to debut our fifth installment of our decade history series that takes a look at how Bluecoats evolved over time. Our previous installments on the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s were produced for our 40th Anniversary in 2012. When 2020 arrived, we began putting together that fifth episode and it may suprise you. Sure, Bluecoats had a great run of competitive success between 2010 and 2020 with three Bronze, two Silver and one Championship Gold finish, but the organization took huge strides beyond the turf. Enjoy this look back in time, to the 2010s and a very Bloo decade!