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Color guard redux: Fake rifles and flourishes

Think Olympics opening ceremony, then synchronized swimming and add twirling rifles and saber rattling.

That’s winter guard — a sport that high school marching bands practice between football seasons.

Winter Guard International’s western regional championships, held annually at the University of San Diego’s Jenny Craig Pavilion, drew some 1,500 members on 62 teams this weekend, heading toward the world championship in Dayton, Ohio, next month. San Diego hosted the world championships in 2004.

Four San Diego area high schools strutted their stuff along with a San Diego State University team, and they needed the precision of a drill sergeant — not only for their performance on the gym floor, but also in the outdoor setup and teardown.

Students have nine minutes in which to haul in their own mat or “floor” along with flags and assorted props, run through their routines to recorded music and then remove themselves and their materials.

Del Norte High School in 4S Ranch and Mt. Carmel High in Rancho Peñasquitos chose unique elements to accompany their dance moves. Del Norte’s “And So it Goes” show, which won a place in Sunday’s finals at 9:08 a.m., included sewing machines and white and purple flags in its factory theme. Mt. Carmel lugged in an oil-derrick-like metal tower as the centerpiece for its “Welcome to Tomorrow.” They painted black masks across their faces and threw yellow, green and blue flags into the air.

Mt. Carmel coaches Louie Flores and Michele Whalley set the theme, chose the music and gathered the props and costumes last summer and had 18 students to work with. Their budget: $30,000, though some schools have to raise $100,000 or more to engage in multiple tournaments across the country.

“If you want to do this, if you have the desire, we’ll teach you to do everything,” Whalley said.

The other two local high schools participating were Mira Mesa and Eastlake.

And about those rifles and sabers.

Winter Guard International, founded in 1977, grew out of military color guard demonstrations and soon replaced the patriotic displays and weapons with colorful banners, wood rifle-shaped instruments and plastic swords.

The result is a panoply of color, precision and tricky acrobatics and baton-like twirling (you lose points if you drop anything).

The elimination of military uniformity opened up an endless variety in production.

One team from Stevenson Ranch in Los Angeles’ Santa Clarita Valley donned 1950s-inspired blue uniforms for their show, “Come Fly With Me.” A Phoenix team ended “The Lost City of Atlantis” by covering themselves with a floor-size, see-through white covering resembling waves.

Watching all this were the judges, including Kristen O’Melia from Woburn, Mass. She competed in the winter guard in high school and has been a judge for the past 25 years, her weekends booked from January through April.

“It’s very much more dramatic and theatrical,” she said of the requirement for body and equipment to move in harmony.

The students come from a background of dance, gymnastics or no training at all.

Taylor Garcia, a 17-year-old senior from Del Norte High, said she joined the first year winter guard was offered, prompted by her mother who reminded her, “You used to twirl stuff.” She gave it a try.

“My friends bullied me into it,” said Anh-tuan Pham, a 17-year-old senior at Mt. Carmel. But he also brought along some background in gymnastics.

Gretchen Libatique, 17, Pham’s classmate, said winter guard is fun and involves plenty of work.

“You lose a little weight,” she added.

As for the Olympics, Bart Woodley, Winter Guard International’s director of operations, said the Ohio-based organization is looking into the International Olympic Committee’s rules for adding new sports to the quadrennial competition.

“That would certainly be one of our thoughts and aspirations of the organization,” he said, “to try and elevate the level of competition to the Olympics.”