Pedantic Prattles: April 2012

Titanic 3D

Heather and I made our way into New York today to see Titanic 3D in IMAX.

We got here a little early and was able to go to Gray's Papaya for a couple of Recession Specials (2 hot dogs and a juice for $5). I remember when the Recession Specials were $2.22 - that was 10 years ago. I guess recessions are not what they used to be.

Heather scarfed down 2 dogs, but could put up with the banana juice. So I got her a coconut juice drink and that was gross.

The screen at this theater is about 75-80 wide and 75-80 feet high. The movie is much longer than I remember - with intermission it is 3.5 hours. The effects of the 3D were very well done and it is hard to imagine the amount of work required to convert each frame of the film from 2D to 3D.

Anyway - it was a fun day out.

Sarah the Champion (repost)

This week I had the honor to accompany Sarah and her Somerville Winter Guard team as an "unofficial" chaperone as they travelled to compete in the 2012 WGI World Championships in Dayton, Ohio.

The Somerville team had been competing well in Northeast tournaments for the past couple of months. They won every event and won some competitions by large margins. As a result, they came to the World Championships ranked #1 in the country for high school teams.

The format of the World Championships is to compete in brackets - top teams advance and are seeded in the next round. Scores do not carry over from round to round, but seeding is important.

In the preliminary round, Somerville finished 3rd overall giving them a top seed in one of the four semi-final brackets. They did very well, but had a couple of mistakes that were almost certainly attributable to the nerves at being this high profile event.

In the semi-finals, they improved their performance from the preliminaries and had only one visible flaw to my untrained eye. They finished 2nd overall and would compete in the finals second to last. Top seed was a school from Houston that was ranked second in the nation coming in and this team had won both the preliminary and semi-final rounds.

The night of the finals was a bit more intense than the preliminaries and semi-finals. I was concerned that the girls would get caught up in the hype of the event and not perform at their peak potential. I spent most of the competition backstage as a helping hand with the floor equipment waiting in line with the other teams.

Standing backstage as I watched each of the teams from all over the country go-in ahead of us, I kept wondering how all of these young girls would handle the pressure. I wondered whether Somerville would be able to perform better this night than 14 of the other top teams in the country.

There was a TV monitor in the loading area and I could get some brief glimpses of the performances leading up to Somerville, however, I could not get a sense of what lie ahead for our team. I suppose I was as nervous as everyone else – the helpless nervousness where there is nothing to do but wait.

We got the floor setup quickly and without incident. I jumped into the stands on the side of the competition area with the 3 other dads who setup their floor equipment and we waited and watched. It was hard to tell how large the crowd was, but I would say between 5,000-8,000, maybe more. Given the local high school gyms that the team is used to performing, it might as well have been Madison Square Garden.

As the show progressed, the team performed essentially flawless. Unlike the other teams before them, the crowd was visibly cheering for Somerville as they progressed through their program. A performance with no regrets is all you can ask for in this situation and I was so happy for them as the crowd gave them a standing ovation. Win or lose, they could be proud of how they handled the pressure and know they did their best.

As we cleared the floor and went backstage to wait for the last team to perform, you could see the joy and release of the nervous tension of the girls, coaches, and even dads helping with floor equipment. After we dropped of the equipment, I jumped backstage to catch a few moments of the final team on the monitor. They did not look as tight as they had in prior performances and the crowd was certainly more subdued. It had to be hard for this team to stand behind the curtain and hear the huge crowd noises during Somerville's performance. I waited to see their faces as they walked off the floor and up to the loading area to see if I could see something in their faces to tell me if this was going to be close. They were emotionless from what I could tell. Now was the time to wait for the final scores.

I made my way back to sit with the other Somerville parents and we all sat nervously as we watched all of the teams parade out onto the floor for the announcement of the winners. They announced the scores from 15 down to first place. Each time they announce a score and team, there is relief not to hear Somerville's name. As it gets down to the last 5, the scores are noticeably higher than the prior rounds. Is it possible that other teams performed equally well or better?

Down to the final two teams. This is it. "Second Place, with a score of 96.55" - a score 3 points higher than any prior score in the competition – "Andy Dekany High School from Houston, Texas". That was it. Somerville had won it all with a score if 97.15 (4.3 points higher than the semi-finals). It was hard to contain the emotion at that point. I was so proud of Sarah and her teammates and so happy for them on this tremendous accomplishment.

Without being here and experiencing this firsthand, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate this journey that my babydoll Sarah and her teammates have been on. As time goes by they will appreciate what a truly fantastic and incredible accomplishment this has been.

Sarah - congratulations to you, your teammates, yours coaches, parents and supporter of the 2012 Somerville Winter Guard - WGI National Champions. Thank you for including me.

I love you very much and am more proud than you can know.