OverCommittedParent

See, I knew it was a stupid question!

This may be a stupid question, but instead of adding another BOA Regional, why not move one of the two north Texas regionals to central Texas? Do we need regionals in both Denton and Arlington? Seems like having one regional in north Texas, one in the Houston area, and one in central Texas would cover the three geographic areas out of which come the vast majority of BOA participants.

Yes, I don't think one can say it's "shocking" that Anderson did not make finals. Other than a handful of super elite bands, the pool of very good bands is too deep and there are too many variables on any given performance day. But as one previous poster pointed out, it is odd that Anderson's score dropped as it did from St. Louis. It's possible that Anderson's performance was not quite as good as it was in St. Louis, but I doubt it was that much worse. Something about the show did not resonate as well with the SA judges as it did with the St. Louis ones.

I was also wondering about using Bobcat Stadium in San Marcos for a BOA Regional. Seems like a good meet up place for the San Antonio and Austin area bands. Don't know how the parking, warm up logistics would compare to the Round Rock Palace.

Just to be clear, in my previous post I was in no way insinuating that Bowie gets a pass because of their reputation. My point was that unless you're in one of the elite bands, such as Bowie, that are so head-and-shoulders-above-the-crowd good that a busdriver pulled in to judge who had never seen a marching band before in his or her life would place you in the top 10, then the best you can do for prelims is be among the very large pool of very good bands who MIGHT have a shot at finals. You have no way of accurately gauging your likelihood for making finals because you simply don't know how the judge will assess your show. If the marching judges can't figure out if Churchill marched a 15 show or a 5 show or if McNeil marched a 2 show or a 17 show, then it's just up for grabs.

Let's just acknowledge what is ultimately going on here. UIL makes no effort to have any kind of predictable rubric or standard for juding marching contests. Different judges will have different ideas of what they want to reward in terms of music and marching. Therefore, unless a kid is in an elite band like Bowie, all they can really hope to achieve in UIL Area prelims is to be good enough to be in the pool of 15 or more very good bands from which the rest of the finalists will be chosen. Whether a band is ranked 3rd or 13th in prelims is almost meaningless in terms of any kind of real assessment, or really anything other than the fact that the 3rd ranked band got to go to finals and the 13th ranked band did not. That's just how the prelim lotto worked out on that day. If that's the system we want, then that's fine. But let's not kid outselves -- or more importantly, let's not imply to the kids -- that the "prediction" game is anything but completely pointless entertainment and that except for the elite one or two bands, the other bands can really only hope to make it into the lotto pool. Making predictions assumes some there is some degree of standard by which one can make a reasonable guess as to what it takes for a band to make finals. But there is none. The truth is that for the vast majority of bands, it's a throw of the dice.

I also don't personally believe Anderson was egregiously robbed. But I also don't think that's a very high standard for something of this importance to this many people. 3/5ths of the judges in prelims didn't have Lake Travis in the top 6. Would LT have been "egregiously robbed" if there were no finals and LT didn't have the chance to move up in position? No. If the goal is to just make sure that 6 bands make it on to state with a minium of controversy over who those top 6 are, then the system worked reasonably well. There's no band among those who went on that I would say don't deserve their spot. I just think the system should work better than that. And I don't think it's a pipe dream. I don't think such wide variation in what the judges are to look for and assess is accepted in other performance-based competitions.

Again, I'm not griping about who made finals and who didn't. Every band who made finals worked their hearts out and put on a great show. But if we're going to have a judging system, that judging system needs to have legitimacy. What we had in prelims were scoring variancies like the following in marching: J4 J5 Westwood 4 13 Churchill 15 5 McNeil 2 17 Anderson 26 7 Round R 22 10 Wagner 7 25 It's just my opinion, but I think this is a problem. I don't think it's enough to say they ultimately got the top 10 bands right. Every band deserves to be adequately assessed. Did McNeil march a "2" show or a "17"? Did Anderson march a "26" show or a "7"? Did Wagner march a "7" show or "25"? Don't these bands deserve a legitimate assessment even if it was fair for all three of them to not make the top 10?

In any performance contest, there is going to be a signficant amount of subjectivity, particularly at the top levels -- whether it's marching band or theatre or ballroom dancing. For example, it's one thing when a panel of diving judges give a diver a spread of a 9.4 to a 9.7. But when one judge awards an 8.3 and the rest of the panel is at 9.0 to 9.5, and that judge gives a 9.8 to a diver the rest of the panel is giving an 8.6, something's wrong. That judge is using a whole different standard of measurement than the others. Judges will make subjectively different assessments, but they need to be on the same general page about what it is that they're judging. Otherwise, there's no point in having judges. You might as well draw lots to see who advances.

I realize that marching band contest judging is subjective, but that judge that scored Round Rock a 22 and Anderson a 26 is an incompetent hack. I don't know who he is and he may be a fine director, but he shouldn't allowed anywhere near a marching contest. Yes, I understand that this one judge isn't what kept RR and Anderson out of finals. I'm not complaining about who got into finals and who didn't. But if UIL can hire one incompetent judge for prelimns this time, they can hire two or three next time. Let's please weed out the judges who shouldn't be there. Also, add my voice to those suggesting some of you give it a couple of days before telling the disappointed kids to get over it. Yes, they will get over it and they will be fine. But they don't have to be over it in less than 48 hours. And while I'm at it, about the suggestion that they take this as a reminder or motivation for next year: this is UIL. It only happens every other year. There is no next year for close to half the band.