splooie Tee

"Splooie" was the name of Jim Jones’ (Troopers) pet goat which Don Warren accidentally burned with his cigar after a show in Casper, Wyoming in 1971. The goat reacted by relieving its bladder on Don’s shoes, and Jim Jones made a comment something like “That’s the end of the Cavaliers, Warren!” It appeared that either Jones or the goat hexed the Corps, and this led to several years of wandering in the drum corps wilderness in the 70’s and through the mid 80’s. The Cavaliers started hollering Splooie to try to break the hex, but it was unsuccessful until the Trooper’s home show in July 1986 when the Troopers finally felt some pangs of regret and treated Don W. to a hamburger for lunch. Unbeknownst to Don the burger was made of goat meat. (Not Splooie; she had passed on in ’73) That seemed to break the hex and the Cavaliers slowly climbed out of their double digit DCI placements. The tradition of yelling Splooie lives on as a tribute to the men who kept the corps going with sometimes entertaining (but not high scoring) shows in those intervening years.