Chief Delphi - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to attend Championship!

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricH (Post 1162162)

To be fair, you could ask the exact same question about will.i.am (musician), George H.W. Bush (former president), Jon Dudas (patent office) or _____(one of the Google founders who spoke at Championship; the name escapes me right now). Every one of them has been at the Championship, speaking. But other than patents (which can be very dry, boring, and otherwise "who cares" to the outside public), what does any of them have to do with inspiring kids to STEM? What have they done that people in general should look up to them?

I think that's 90% of it. It is additional recognition of FIRST, and not for what celebrities it can attract. You see, to be a decent journalist, you do need to get some background. So you go to cover KAJ at this robotics competition, and you start asking questions, maybe not to KAJ, but to the organizers. To the teams. To onlookers. Then you find out what FIRST does and write at least somewhat about that.

Here's the biggest problem with that sort of line. Speakers at the TED talks--"Who's that? Oh, some dude who came up with X technology that isn't practical right now. Meh. I'm going to the mall." That isn't necessarily my response--but I'd be willing to bet that other than a few people, it'd cover a lot of today's youth and/or adults--FIRST's target audience. Interesting topics? Yes. Interesting speakers? Maybe. Interested audience? Probably not. Some of the other options, like Bill Nye--I don't even know if he's on the air anymore--might work, for people that are already out of school and saw this cool show as a kid. (And I don't have a clue who Neil deGrasse Tyson is.) In other words, still not getting to the target audience.

But, if you want to go that way, I'd go for Adam, Jamie, Kari, Tori, and Grant, AKA the Mythbusters. That's a group that both sides--the engineers and the general populace--could relate to.

As a high school student, i wholeheartedly agree.

This discussion is very relevant to me because i watch TED Talks, i watch mythbusters, i love basketball, i love Bill Nye, and I know who Neil deGrasse Tyson is.

Out of all these people I would hands down choose KAJ to come to championships. The man is a legend. The game is about basketball. He has scored more points than anyone ever in the NBA. (Also see Karthik's posts on all the other amazing things he's done)

TED Talks are great, but there are so many different speakers and none of them are too famous so that wouldn't be as great.

Bill Nye is amazing. He does not do TV shows now, however he was just recently at a science teacher conference that my teacher went to. She said everyone followed him around like he was a celebrity. I would just barely choose KAJ over Bill Nye, mainly due to my love for basketball. From a political/business/FIRST standpoint, if this game was from 2000, I'd choose Bill Nye, because he was still an iconic celebrity in culture. Not that he isn't famous now, but I think KAJ could pull more media coverage then Bill Nye can in 2012. Mythbusters is hard for me to gauge on a business standpoint. Kari, i believe, was at VEX world last year. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

An important factor we're missing here is that the people still have to agree to go to Champs. For all we know Bill Nye was asked, but he's busy this weekend. We can't assume that KAJ was #1 on their list, and maybe KAJ asked FIRST if he could come.

A nice solution would be to get all of these people, but I think KAJ is the right move if you have to pick one.

-Duke