Retro Rewind: Olympics Edition

This upcoming weekend marks two major events in the worlds of sports and drum corps. Today, the world comes together as the 2024 Summer Olympics officially kick off in Paris, France. The two week event will feature over 10,000 athletes competing in over 300 events for the chance at a medal in 32 different sports. Meanwhile, tomorrow, the summer DCI tour stops in Atlanta, Georgia for the annual Southeastern Championship at Center Parc Stadium. The event will feature 14 corps in competition as they gear up for the final two week stretch of the 2024 season.

What is the significance of these two events happening simultaneously? Believe it or not, drum corps in Atlanta shares an interesting historical connection with the Summer Olympics, more specifically the 1996 iteration that was hosted in the city. Those games are remembered in the marching arts community as one of a few times that drum corps was showcased on a global stage, as the Olympics Closing Ceremony featured an appearance and performance by The Cadets. The ceremony was held in the newly constructed Centennial Olympic Stadium, which after the games, became the home baseball stadium for the Atlanta Braves for 20 years. After the Braves left for a new stadium in 2017, the stadium was reconfigured into a venue for football to where it is now known as…..you guessed it, Center Parc Stadium.

DCI brought the Southeastern Championship to Center Parc Stadium in 2022 after a decade of hosting the event in the Georgia Dome, and later in the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Back in 2022, we published a “Retro Rewind” blog piece that spoke about the venue and its unique way of connecting drum corps to the Olympics. With the Summer Olympics starting today and the Southeastern Championship happening tomorrow, we thought it’d be fun to revisit that piece and The Cadets’ performance in 1996. Below is that original piece with light edits and updates where needed. Enjoy!

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Atlanta, Georgia has been an iconic city for the drum corps activity throughout DCI’s history. Of course the city is best known in the activity as the home base of Spirit of Atlanta, founded by DCI Hall of Famer Freddy Martin in 1977. The 20-time finalist celebrated their 45 year anniversary in 2022 and recently returned to the field in 2023 after a year of being inactive. The city also hosted the 1984 DCI World Championships at Grant Field (now named Bobby Dodd Stadium), one of the oldest college football stadiums in the country. The 1984 season is best known for The Cadets’ performance of “West Side Story”, the championship winning show that finished with a score of 98.0, a new record at the time. The Cadets would go on to break their own record the following season, while being named champions for the third consecutive year and completing the first “three-peat” in DCI’s history.

One of the most impressive things about The Cadets’ performance was that it was done on a thin tarp laid over the field without any yard lines. With no other field markings in sight in the video, it can be assumed the corps primarily form-marched the entire performance - an impressive feat given the difficult and fast moving segment written by DCI Hall of Fame drill writer, Jeff Sacktig.

Just as impressive was the traveling done by The Cadets just to appear at the Olympics. The corps performed only two days earlier at the DCI Eastern Classic in Allentown, PA before making the 800 mile drive south to Atlanta. Immediately after the performance, The Cadets drove another 875 miles back north to Clifton, NJ just in time to rejoin the DCI tour the following day. At World Championships in Orlando two weeks later, The Cadets finished third with a 96.9. More notably, the 1996 DCI World Championships are remembered for Phantom Regiment winning their first title, one that they shared with Blue Devils after finals ended in a dramatic tie for first place for the first time in DCI history.

Fast forward 28 years and much has happened for both The Cadets and the Summer Olympics since. The Cadets went on to win four more championships in 1998, 2000 (another shared title with The Cavaliers), 2005, and 2011 before unfortunately folding earlier this year after a number of organizational challenges. The Summer Olympics have since hosted six events on three continents (2024 being the seventh) and will finally return to the United States for the first time in 32 years in 2028 with Los Angeles as the host city. Those games are set to take place in the later half of July, which if DCI keeps its schedule format by then, would mean the games would overlap with Drums Along the Rockies in Colorado, the Southwestern Championship in San Antonio, and end the same weekend as the Southeastern Championship. It would be incredible if a drum corps were invited to be part of the 2028 games, though if the DCI schedule holds true, it could make travel and logistics very challenging for a corps to commit to the Olympics in the middle of the summer tour.

From a spectator standpoint, years with the Olympics and the DCI season happening concurrently are always a blast to follow along. There’s never a lack of drama in both events and the next two weeks this year looks to be no different!

DCI continued to annually host shows in the Atlanta metro area through the late 80s and 90s until creating the Southeastern Championship in 2006. The Cavaliers won the inaugural event at the Georgia Dome before the Blue Devils went on an unprecedented streak of eight straight victories in Atlanta from 2007 to 2014. The 2016 Bluecoats were the last corps to win in the Georgia Dome; the following year, the stadium was torn down and DCI temporarily relocated to nearby Power Springs while the newly constructed Mercedes-Benz Stadium was being finished. DCI returned to Atlanta for a short, two year stint in the new stadium in 2018 and 2019.

When DCI returned for its first, full tour post pandemic in 2022, the event was moved a few blocks down the road to Center Parc Stadium where it has been hosted since. The outdoor stadium is the current home of the Georgia State University football stadium but has a storied past, originally named Centennial Olympic Stadium and built for the 1996 Summer Olympics. The 85,000 seat stadium opened just in time for the summer games and played host for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as all track and field events.

For the marching arts community, the 1996 Summer Olympics will be most remembered for putting drum corps on the world stage after The Cadets performed as part of the Closing Ceremony. During the performance on August 4th, The Cadets played the three minute closer from their show that summer titled “The American West.” Afterwards, they performed a short “novelty” performance/sketch led by the fictitious “Dr. Hubert Peterson, the Chairman of the Federation of United Marching Associations of America.” Further research reveals “Dr. Peterson” was played by Bill Irwin, a famed actor and Tony Award winner who has held major roles in movies and television shows such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the 2000 live action remake), Interstellar, Law & Order, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The Closing Ceremony performance is even mentioned in Mr. Iriwn’s Wikipedia page.

A video of the full 1996 Olympics Closing Ceremony is shared below. The Cadets begin at the 5:50 mark with a performance of The Olympic Fanfare, and the segment from their 1996 show begins at the 13:20 mark