SGI Color Guard

04/12/2026

Congrats Stephen and Fusion Winter Guard on their 1st place finish as WGI Sport of the Arts Independent World Champions!

04/10/2026

Wishing the best of luck to our assistant extraordinaire - Stephen - who is about to compete at WGI with Fusion Winter Guard ! Stephen's dedication to guard is unparalleled. He helps out our guard on Tuesday and Thursday nights before driving to NJ on Friday to spend the weekend rehearsing with Fusion. They will be competing with the best of the best as the 2nd seed in Independent World class!

04/03/2026

Thanks to NECGC volunteer of the year, Anthony Baker, for capturing these great shots of our team at finals!

03/29/2026

A color guard show is a unique thing. We start by picking a song, often before the previous season has even ended. We start brainstorming ideas for costumes, props, thematic elements. We start mixing the music and sketching out drill. The whole thing simmers over the summer and into early fall until practices begin.

Then the process of teaching the show begins. We have about 3 months until the start of the season and the first performance. Some of the kids are returning with a year or three of experience. Some have never picked up a flag. By January they all need to be in sync. They start learning equipment work, dance, movement, choreography. They start listening to the song over and over and learning how to count it. Props get built. Costumes get purchased. Hair and makeup ideas get tried on.

Then it's finally time for the first show. Everyone is nervous. Not only the new performers that have never been in a guard show, but the seniors starting their last season, the directors wondering how the show will be received by the judges, and even us prop Dads trying to figure out how to load everything into the trailer. The first performance happens. Scores are received. There's a tiny sigh of relief before immediately dissecting the judges commentary and preparations begin for the following week.

One of the unique things about a winter guard show is that it's not static. Every week we take the judges feedback and make changes to the show. Sometimes it's just focusing on cleaning up equipment work or how to jazz run from one spot on the floor to another. Often entire sections are replaced or new set pieces are added. They have about 8 hours of practice time during the week to relearn the show before the next performance.

Week after week this process repeats. It happens alongside other school activities that pull the kids attention away. We lose practice time to weather and illness. But every week we get to the next show, hoping the kids remember all the changes and put on the best performance they can. We analyze the score sheet to see how we and all our competitors are improving.

Eventually we get to the last show of the season. Like many sports, what you've done before no longer matters. Only today's score matters to show how far you've come and how you stack up to the other groups in your class. Once the show is over, everything gets packed up, put away, cleaned out. This show won't be performed again. The hundreds of hours of practice are hopefully viewed as time well spent. A song they've heard 500 times will just become nostalgia when it pops up randomly on Spotify. Some kids will go off to college and maybe never spin a flag again. Some are already wondering what next year's show will be. The directors have undoubtedly already started working on it.

So here's the final result of our 2026 season. Please enjoy!

2026 North East Color Guard Championships. Recorded at Gates-Chili High School. Special thanks to for her beautiful song that we still love af...

03/28/2026

SGI placed 5th of 7 guards in RA class championships with a new school record score of 78.74! SGI also won the George O. Cowburn Memorial Espirit de Corps award from the NY Federation of Contest Judges! Thanks to all our performers, parents, supporters, and sponsors for a great season! Congrats to all the other NECGC guards and best of luck to everyone heading to WGI!

03/28/2026

This is it! North East Color Guard Circuit Championships are today at Gates-Chili High School! Show starts at 1pm! Good luck to everyone!

03/23/2026

SGI took 3rd place at Jamestown yesterday with an improvement of over 5 points since our last show.

Next up... North East Color Guard Circuit Championships at Gates-Chili on Saturday 3/28!

03/21/2026

It's show day at Jamestown! Details in the comments.

03/14/2026

We're not performing this weekend as 8 of 10 of our guard members are performing in the SGI musical! Good luck to everyone at Medina! See you next week at Jamestown!

03/08/2026

SGI took 4th place at Greece yesterday. We won't be performing March 14th, see you March 21st at Jamestown!

03/07/2026

On our way to Greece HS today! Show info in the comments.

03/05/2026

Thanks to the SGI Sports Alumni for helping fundraise for us, now here's an opportunity to support them!

Hello Griff Nation!

We are having our 3rd Annual Meat Raffle to raise funds for Student-Athlete Leadership Scholarships, a Character Award Program that spans all sports for the entire school year, and funds to support out of budget items for the Athletic Program. See the flyer 👇