A dynasty has ended in a much more tepid fashion than it started.

On Saturday the Poway High Emerald Brigade Marching Band placed seventh out of 23 bands in the Marching Band Open Series Finals competition. While seventh would be a great achievement for any other school, for Poway it was a disappointment and the signal of an end of a dynasty that spans over a decade.

Just two years ago the Emerald Brigade won first place at the same competition with this field show.

Then the next year they won third with this field show.

In three years they went from dominating the competition to hardly challenging the top bands.

This fall is akin to the Los Angeles Lakers winning a world championship then the next year just barley making the playoffs with the eight seed.

Its hard to watch the band you were in for four year, and won many awards with, place so poorly.

Its also sad to see the underclassmen not understand the tradition of winning they are representing and taking such a lackadaisical attitude towards the efforts they put into their practice.

To be fair, its not all the kids fault.

Because of the ACLU the band can no longer require the participants to pay a fee that covers the tournaments, trips, along with the clinicians and instrument repair.

With many of the underclassman’s parent not paying what is now called a donation (thanks to the ACLU), the parents are no longer passionate about the program they no longer have to contribute $500 to.

With the lack of necessary funds the band has to strip down the operation to the bare bones, no more parade band, no more overnight stay and Disneyland performance after the last show. And most importantly, no more trips to Arcadia, the marching band equivalent to the Super Bowl.

The lack of money isn’t even the worse part, participation has gone down dramatically the last six years, starting in 2006 when the band had around 250 members, now in 2011 they are down to around 150.

The Emerald Brigade can no longer keep up with the volume and power the bigger bands, like Vista Murrieta, can produce.

No longer can they keep up with the other bands, with their superior design and marching technique, they are simply being out matched in music. Something that never would have happened a few years ago. 

It may be a culmination of things that has brought a great marching band program down, but it is still sad to see. In a few years (if the program can survive the school budget cuts), the members of the band will only have YouTube to remind them what their peers before them once accomplished. 

But congrats to the seniors, for at least you got to participate in the dominance, if only for a year or two.

For everybody else, you get to witness the sad shell of a program that was once well known and feared through the state.

A band that once marched in the Tournament of Roses parade, can no longer compete with the band in their own state.