Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps

I will say, coming back to your previous point, There's going to be a lot of anti-Blue Coat sentiment in DCI now.

Now they're the Blue Devils, and now you find us rooting for the Blue Devils again, which is the weirdest thing.

Now people are rooting for Carmel, which is the weirdest thing.

I was always rooting

Edited posts going back up.

Yep.

John Mapes of Box Six of Mapes and Grom, the arranger slash caption manager for the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps out of Concord, California.

I imagine he and Dave Glide will go hand in hand in writing the percussion book.

what are some of those like you said that you had some like goals like like lifelong goals that you'd said like what are some of the things that that just happened that you were like oh my god this is amazing

Well, I mean, when you're when you're bumping elbows with the Santa Clara Vanguard, you know, and the Phantom Regiment and the Cavaliers and and the Blue Devils and the Boston Crusaders.

And it's just these are all people that I idolize and look up to and have worked for and have a passion.

absolute tone of respect for and to be, you know, just competing with them.

And I mean, I still use with my junior high things every single day that I learn ensemble techniques, rehearsal techniques, style, approach, mindset.

just that I learned from Jack Meehan.

And then my time at the Blue Devils in 1995 and 96, I was very, very impressionable.

I was a young brass instructor at Michigan High School right after I graduated.

But it's crazy to think we have some breaking news this week.

The breaking news is Scott Johnson is no longer the percussion caption head at Blue Devils.

Now here's the history, right? I just looked it up.

I wanted to make sure I was very factual with this.

John Mapes.

I don't know if I'm saying that right.

Maps? Mapes? But he is now the percussion director at Blue Devils.

Skojo is not going away, but... he's just kind of i think a consultant now and i think john mapes is going to be writing the book and uh being the the head guy which i'm really excited about uh for those who don't know john mapes was uh been the captain head at pulse percussion and pulse has been winning for the last god knows how many years they are always in the top three so uh i do think the blue devil is as far as percussion uh again speaking from the percussion guy here i think they have been kind of lacking a little bit in that way.

Played snare drum there.

Then I went to VK in 95. after that vk was kind of in a weird little situation so i went back to pacific crest okay 96 and then went to blue devils 97 98 um and then kind of was trying to figure out what i was gonna do for for life yeah um yeah so summer of 99 made the decision i was actually talking to uh rich henshaw And, you know, we all know well, right? So Rich was very, very informative, getting me information about ASU and didn't know what I wanted to do.

So I finally just one day without even telling my parents, I applied for ASU, got the acceptance letter, was going to do the whole school of music thing and everything.

I was still kind of unsure, went to my parents and I finally, I was like, Hey, I got accepted to ASU, moved out here to Arizona and never left.

That's pretty, that's pretty

cool.

Yeah, you know he was also at Blue Devils.

In 91.

If we even want to have a hope of not looking foolish, we need to step this up.

And he put us in contact with a couple of guys who were former Blue Devils guys.

And the one kid, he was kind of putting, I call him the kid, he's probably 30.

But he put us in contact with a guy who was kind of starting his thing.

Mercyhurst, who could have earned a share of the title with a win, they were down seven points.

They had first and 10th to Central, 12 with under a minute to go, but four straight incompletions let the celebration begin in New Britain for the Blue Devils.

For the second straight year, Central Connecticut earned the league's automatic bid to the FCS playoffs, where also for a second straight year, they fell to URI.

Two years ago, it was by four points.

Chicago State, they are not included in the preseason poll because they don't play a league schedule this year.

In fact, they're an independent team.

here in 2026 Mercyhurst and New Haven are eligible are not eligible rather for the FCS playoffs and they are programs currently going through the reclassification process Central Connecticut State they are looking to become the first team to win three championships in a row since Robert Morris won five in a row from 1996 all the way to the year 2000 So storyline number three, we want to take a look at Duquesne because they were picked as the top challenger to the Blue Devils, which makes sense because they're seven time champions and they finished top two in the standings nine out of the last 11 seasons.

That's nine of the last 11 years finishing either in first place or in second.