1973 SCV

Their show was far superior to anything seen by the world of drum corps until this time. Gail Royer’s Young Person’s Guide to Drum Corps, adapted from Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to Orchestra turned into a professional, five-minute production number. Near the conclusion of the production, Santa Clara marked time with three distinct and separate cadences while each section performed a separate drill to that cadence. With the introduction of the Bottle Dance, in which the 10-member rifle line came front and center, locked hands, knelt and then moved forward in unison brought every audience from California to Massachusetts and finally in Whitewater, to their feet.

The corps won 27 contests, losing once to the Troopers. On August 17th, in front of 14,000 fans at Warhawk Stadium in Whitewater, Wisconsin, SCV won its first Drum Corps International World Championship with a score of 88.65 and achieved a near perfect General Effect score of 29 out of 30 points. The percussion section went undefeated and was to remain so for two consecutive years.