National ChampionS

Plural.

Nazareth Area HS Blue Eagle Marching Band won the USSBA National Championship. (As they say, "Wahoo!")

Avon HS Marching Black and Gold was crowned Bands of America Grand National Champion. (LD Bell, last year's champion, was second, leading to the following IM comment: "Ding dong. Avon calling.")

There are countless state champions, too - divided by various classes - and other associations such that award "super-regional" championships such as the Tournament of Bands Atlantic Coast Champions and the Western Band Association and others I know I've missed. (Note: The TOB link will take you to a high school band site that is generally more up to date that the TOB home page).

In a way, crowning a National Champion in band is like crowning a national champion in college football. Lots of divisions, lots of bowl games or playoffs, lots of polls - er - scoring methodologies and philosophies. And not everyone competes at a certain level, even if they could. Witness the debate about non-BOA appearing Flower Mound (TX) Marcus HS band! A national high school football champion is nearly easier to award (witness the USA Today weekly rankings).

Professionally I work in medical practice management with a focus on anesthesiology. Finding the "right" and "best" is about as hard. Is the care team best or not? (Band speak: Do we count the guard in the members or not?) What is the optimal way to determine a band class - experience, band size, school size? (Anesthesia speak: Is medical direction best at 1:3? 1:4? 1:10? Or does it matter?)

Besides, how do we weight General Effect and Music? (Anesthesia speak: What is good vs. excellent vs. superior anesthesia care? Well, yeah, they wake up and are pain free, but the bedside manner was a mess and the case is always delayed, so ...).

I wrote before, I think, on one of the best bands I saw - a relatively small band from a relatively small Texas border town winning Class 5A, where then big boys and girls play. It hasn't happened since then.

Lately I have wrestled with the concept of excellence, especially personal sustained excellence. It is not easy, nor is it easy to do in everything. We succeed. We fail. We fail at previous successes. We succeed at previous failures. Sometimes we fail a lot and figure out that maybe we shouldn't play that game, or use that particular scoresheet. Sometimes we succeed and own the game. Sometimes we succeed and forget to check to see if the rules changed.

So are we all champions? Well, clearly we cannot be. But we can at least give our best in the field of play, whatever it is, and we can give our best at each "game".

I guess all of this is to say what a National Champion really is (six words?): Singular performance in a singular time.