Flags In A Gym: A Colorguard Podcast
Sep 30, 2026 · 57 min · 13 segments
Welcome back everyone. For today's episode I sat down with the Director of Emerald Winterguard, Hector Brambila, to discuss all the ins-and-outs of the Emerald program. We discussed his role as…
let's talk a little bit about the history of the Emerald program.
So we mentioned you started in 2016.
You started Independent A and you had about 12 members.
That's a good strong first year.
I've talked to some other programs where they have five or six and hold on for dear life and it grows, thankfully.
Yeah,
You placed 17th overall.
You actually almost made finals.
Came super close.
Oh, yeah.
What was that endeavor like? Did you get like some validation out of that? Like, oh, we're doing the right thing.
We're making the right steps or?
Yeah, I think, you know, as as such a small staff and such a small group, I mean, I think at the time I must have been 24 when we took the group to Ohio.
We had a lot of people on our end kind of saying maybe you should wait a little bit, maybe get more experience and.
We even had, you know, to be honest, we had one judge at one show say to us, you'll be lucky if you make semis after one of our performances.
But, you know, there were a lot of people that said, you know, maybe just wait a little bit longer, get a little bit more experience and whatnot.
You know, these students wanted to just experience, you know, sometimes the joy is not the success that is tangible.
let's talk a little bit about the history of the Emerald program.
So we mentioned you started in 2016.
You started Independent A and you had about 12 members.
That's a good strong first year.
I've talked to some other programs where they have five or six and hold on for dear life and it grows, thankfully.
Yeah,
You placed 17th overall.
You actually almost made finals.
Came super close.
Oh, yeah.
What was that endeavor like? Did you get like some validation out of that? Like, oh, we're doing the right thing.
We're making the right steps or?
Yeah, I think, you know, as as such a small staff and such a small group, I mean, I think at the time I must have been 24 when we took the group to Ohio.
We had a lot of people on our end kind of saying maybe you should wait a little bit, maybe get more experience and.
We even had, you know, to be honest, we had one judge at one show say to us, you'll be lucky if you make semis after one of our performances.
But, you know, there were a lot of people that said, you know, maybe just wait a little bit longer, get a little bit more experience and whatnot.
You know, these students wanted to just experience, you know, sometimes the joy is not the success that is tangible.
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