VENICE — For the first time in school history, Venice High School’s color guard placed first at the 2024 Florida Federation of Color Guards Circuit Championships in March in Daytona.
For the team, many said it was also the first time they felt heard after a challenging marching band season.
Composed of only one junior, freshman and sophomores, the Emeralds’ 2024 indoor show included an 8-minute performance choreographed and directed by GerVóntez Eva. Titled “Can I Make it Better,” the show follows the feeling of being misunderstood, a theme Eva said was commonly felt during a challenging marching band season.
“We only had two returning members and no guard class, so we were worried about how were they going to catch up,” Eva said. “When we got a superior for the marching band MPA (Music Performance Assessment), I wanted to express how we felt in the winter guard show.”
Eva, who has participated in high school and independent guard seasons for more than five years, said he felt the VHS team deserved a chance to experience a season specifically geared toward the skill of color guard.
“Last year, we had the interest but we were not ready for the circuit yet,” Eva said. “But I wanted them to experience what I had gone through, so we decided to create a winter guard along with solo and ensemble this season.”
As a group of eager members, some returning and others completely new to the field of flying flags and sabers, the Emeralds quickly got to work in January. With a team composed of just 16 students, the team worked their way through hundreds of hours of clinics and practices after school and on the weekends.
After spending more than three months learning the show, the color guard team represented their school once last time on the big stage in Daytona
Kaileen Clark, a co-captain and two-year member, said walking up to claim the team’s banner and first place trophy felt “surreal.”
“At the beginning, it was really rough, so I was kind of expecting something lower,” Clark said. “It was definitely rewarding so see that we got first after so much hard work.”
With many untrained members entering a new, unexplored season of competition, teamwork and patience helped the team rise to the top.
“It was a lot of becoming friends with them first, so getting to know them helped them get better and cooperate with each other,” co-captain Sayaka McCue said.
Words of encouragement after succeeding in getting a new flag or rifle toss down, team bonding events and daily check-ins with members maintained motivation for the team to move forward after a bad run of their show, McCue said.
“The idea of knowing we could get better kept us going,” McCue said.
The team’s determination was quickly rewarded when they received straight A’s during their Music Performance Assessment in February, influencing the color guard to push themselves to the next level.
Even if that meant upping the show’s level of difficulty a day before the championships.
“As a show designer, it’s hard because you have a lot of ideas and don’t know which will stick at the beginning,” Eva said. “But as we progressed throughout the season, I thought about the ending of bringing someone back into a hug would really bring the routine to a good close.”
With many members unable to practice during spring break — which landed a week before the final competition — VHS color guard was given one final test to make a name for themselves in their opening season.
“It was a risk I was willing to take,” Eva said.
The head coach’s decision paid off in the end, with a successfully added emotional ending paving the way to gold glory for VHS.
“As the season went on, we were working together so well so we just knew we could pull it together for the final run,” two-year member Aspen Paul said.
For some members, the group’s newfound teamwork formed new friendships and a stronger sense of pride for color guard, too.
“It’s totally worth it because you get a friend group and become so close with them,” McCue said. “For me, I had no idea with color guard was, but when I joined, it became something I loved because it was fun and it’s just a good hobby.”
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