Language at Championships
 

FIRST is an amazing program which does so much for the world today. We are seen as decent kids with amazing futures. Please lay off on the unnecessary language.

Overall, I must agree, the 2006 FIRST Championships were awesome (as usual). However, I couldn't help but notice more and more people calling things "gay", and using vulgar language so often, it seemed to have been obsessive. Your teachers, parents, mentors, and FIRST all hold you responsible for your actions.

Not only does it make you look bad, but it makes your team look bad, it makes your town look bad, it makes FIRST look bad. Also, in an event featuring over a dozen countries, what kind of image are you leaving of yours?

Re: Language at Championships
 

I couldn't agree more with this. Really, this isn't in the spirit of the competition. This behavior is not gracious or professional at all. As a representative of everything listed in the previous post, I would hope the bright kids of FIRST would have the sense refrain from this kind of behavior, as it is offensive and in most cases uncalled-for.

I understand (although I wasn't able to be there, unfortunately) that the Championships can be very tiring. However, this is no excuse for letting your manners slip.

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i agree 100%. the language seemed to be better in years past. i hope that this also applies to some of the songs that were played at championship. i found some of them had foul language and were offensive.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I remember going down the hallway (I called the "stinky hall", everybody probably knows which one I'm talking about) to the arena during quarterfinals and hearing this team just yelling obscene words. It was extremely unprofessional. I've heard a lot of other things that really disappointed me this year as well, but not NEARLY as bad as the f-words coming out of their mouths.

Even language aside, I noticed a lot of people not really being very sportsman-like nor FIRST-like. I've seen people get so upset that they bust their safety glasses into pieces on the floor and yell at their other team members.

I'll close up saying that I was disappointed when I heard all the people laughing when the speech announcing the Chairman's Award was taking place. I thought it was very unprofessional and childish to say the least. I'd like to see any of the people laughing at the speaker (over something as silly as just having a running nose, which is what it sounded like) stand up in front of an international event and make a speech.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I have been known to slip in the odd expletive when I crunch/burn/cut/rip/abrade/solder/puncture/electrocute/smash/etc. my fingers, but only in our shop, use of foul language at a competition is really a stupid idea. A competition is like a massive job orientation, and you don't swear at one of those do you? What you say is great advice and should be taken by every team. (Although it can be hard to enforce a no swearing rule)

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I also agree. the behavior of some teams and members wasn't that great either. I would like to post an apology to team 772 for the behavior of our chaperone when you were saving seats for Einstein. it was not gracious or professional. Sorry :o

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Personally, I know that on my team, that kind of language is just not acceptable. The kids know that I don't tolerate it and, although they try to find amusing ways to get around the no bad words rule, they are pretty good about not using the language. It's all about what you ask of your students.

Re: Language at Championships
 

One of the greatest things about FIRST that I absolutely loved that I learned this year as a rookie is all the gracious professionalism. So, yeah, I completely agree that at FIRST, actions and words should be done carefully. Nothing wrong with light critzism but rude remarks are just quite simply rude.

Re: Language at Championships
 

You'll see less sportsmanship and a little less FIRST-like things at Nationals. Thats why I love Regionals. They are only competitive once the elimination matches begin. It's very relaxed and teams get to know teams better. Relations and FIRST fun is seen more often at a Regional. Getting mad at a regional is stupid and everyone knows it. But Nationals are a lot more competitive because thats where the big awards and big noteability comes from. If I had a FIRST team, the only time we'd go to Nationals is if we won a regional, and intead attend as many regionals as we could.

Re: Language at Championships
 

That pretty much sums up how our team planned for 2006.

We went to Atlanta last year as first-time regional CA winners, after having really enjoyed both our home regional and Buckeye. Many of us found the Championship overwhelming.

This year we earned an Atlanta slot with a regional EI award, but decided we'd only go if we could get our robot working well enough to be part of a winning alliance at our second regional (Waterloo). So our FRC team didn't go to Atlanta, but two of our FVC teams did.

Team picnic is coming up next weekend, and I'm looking forward to the discussion of goals for next year.

Back to the main topic here: certainly we can all agree that rude language is not GP. If you wouldn't say something in front of your grandmother, you shouldn't say it at a FIRST event.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I also thought it was really unprofessional for teams to be leaving during the speech in order to go the party quicker. It's not like there wasn't going to be enough tables to seat everyone or enough food to feed a small army. The teams leaving obviously didn't realize that there were still tons of teams who had to completely crate their robot and pack up before leaving the dome.

That's understandable, and i'm sure many people do that in private. But I agree that it is unaccaptable at an event in front of the public.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I agree, but I also probably don't keep a 100% clean mouth, especially
if Gay is a bad word. I would never go down a hall yelling the F word,
or anything even close to it... but if in the heat of a match I let the big
D out, I can't help it (the big D is not darn). I try to limit these things,
and when I do say them, they are usually under my breath and to
myself because I feel that I didn't perform as well as I should have.
Overall, I couldn't agree more that loudly yelling profanities is a
VERY BAD IDEA.

Re: Language at Championships
 

There it is! Thats what I was trying to remember for this post.

Re: Language at Championships
 

:) I am going to go off topic very quickly to negate this. Many teams left early because the event was running behind and they had to make their flights, their buses...my team had to leave very quickly right after the awards, some teams may have had even less flexibility.

Back on track - it's hard to control cursing at competition. The simplest thing to do is to just deal with it, but if an opportunity comes to fix the situation, take it.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I only saw one really ungracious moment by a team and that was in which someone threw down their safety googles breaking them into pieces.

Re: Language at Championships
 

Just remember,

The Press/Media has almost unlimited accesses to anywhere at a FIRST Event (minus the gray carpet)... how bad would it be if 20/20 was doing a expose on FIRST, and they happened to catch an act like that on camera... some kid looses a match, and looses their cool... it would be a very bad representation of both FIRST and your Team. Just remember we all represent FIRST and our team while we are at an event that is open to the public!

Re: Language at Championships
 

To add to Eugenia's comments, the 12 teams playing on Einstein had a pit to pack up and a robot to crate...

Re: Language at Championships
 

I'm so glad this has been brought up...I've been thinking of doing it for a while.

I strongly agree with many of the previous responses. I think that swearing is distasteful (whether done seriously or jokingly, though when hitting your thumb with a hammer it is more understandable.) When I hear people speaking like that I'm less likely to try to meet them. Also, if the language makes you uncomfortable then it will be harder to work together.

I've politely confroted and asked some people about it/to try to not swear as much. Their responses have varied. I think the greatest lesson I've learned is that confronting people privately is much easier and more effective solution than brining up a specific situation in front of a group (although this sometimes works well).

One response that I received, after bringing the topic up, was, "Oh please, it just another word in the English language."...I didn't say anything more because arguing then wouldn't have helped.
But, to that I say, yes it is just another word. But our words have meaning. (Really can you imagine trying to communicate if your words had no meaning:) And what we say to each other reflects the way we treat each other. And swearing, though disrespect may not be intended, is NOT respectful. And we're trying to foster respect...yes?

Lastly, swearing has no place in the workplace. And while we're competing and building robots together, we are working. Fortunately, most people I meet have been wonderful to meet and I have learned so much from being a part of FIRST. And thank you for starting this thread.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I didnt hear any instances where people were yelling vulgar words but it is inappropriate and very un "FIRST" like. I dont agree though with it intirely, if you are displaying your displeasure with the outcome of a match due to machine or human error or something similer to a teammate or friend who is not offended by that type of language i see no problem with it. i have been known to curse under my breath about losing a match and dropping in ranking but yelling so everybody can hear is uncalled for.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I spent most my time in the pits with my drivers and mechanical students and really didn't hear that much foul language. What did surprise me when I went to the stands was seeing some girls dressed in pants and string bikini tops. They had painted their bodies and one of them had many piercings in very odd places. I understand that these are high school kids but a lot of families were there with young children and were offended. I was even more amazed when one of these students was chosen by her team to accept their award during the closing ceremonies. FIRST is not "Girls Gone Wild" If my feelings offend anyone I am sorry, but I truly believe that this was out of place.

Re: Language at Championships
 

Here is what I think about this. There is always that group of friends at any high school that paints letters on their chests and go nuts at Football, Hockey or other sport events. You will always find a group of people that will do odd things to get their team noticed. First off, that team you spoke of, It's usually expected they'd do that. You can't avoid them. It's how they choose to show their spirit.

Yes it's a little weird, and yes you feel odd, but you can't stop a team member's expression of spirit. If there was a shirts-must-be-on rule, you will get lots of grumbles.

Not only that, but you get the same thing at a community pool.

Re: Language at Championships
 

Ah, the pink team. I thought they were pretty nifty with all the pink everywhere. Genius too, because I don't think I'll EVER forget them :D

The person who mentioned the safety glasses, did you see it during finals at Galileo? I'm not going to mention anybody in particular.

Re: Language at Championships
 

well i can deal with profanity (to a level), but something I saw on thursday in galileo just crossed the line. Two members of the same team on our alliance got into a fist-fight during the match over who would throw the ball. I wont mention who, and I never saw that team act anything like this again, but that just went way too far.

Re: Language at Championships
 

Although I've never been on a team that went as far as to use vulgar language, I have seen first hand how in the heat of competition good judgement can go out the window. One of my most embarassing moments in FIRST was when I was coaching my high school team, and the camera guy decided to zoom right in on me while I was screaming at our robot for chucking a chain. For the rest of the competition, people kept making anger management jokes about me. Of course, the fact that we had a parent yell at a ref at the Chatsworth scrimmage earlier that season didn't help.

It was funny to see how fast Dean and company tried to get them off the stage after getting their award.

Re: Language at Championships
 

during the finals matches and the awards ceremony i was stunned by the ungraciousness of the team behind me... they made paper airplanes and had the nerve to throw them at me and my team...when i asked the to stop they acted like they cared but two minutes later i had another airplane in my hair

Re: Language at Championships
 

I'd like to second this apology. I'm pretty sure Storcky has the team number right; if not, whatever team it was will know we mean them. Myself and another student apologized in person when we were there, but it can't possibly hurt to reiterate. (We eventually gave our seats and the three we were saving to allow a little more room, and we went to sit with our friends from Buzz (thanks for temporarily adopting us guys, we appreciated it :) ))

I know saving seats isn't legal by the rulebook, but that is no call for anyone to be ungracious or unprofessional towards a team that saved seats, since there is never an excuse for it. I won't post the exact details of our chaparone's squabble with 772, mostly because I'm thoroughly embarrassed. It was very un-FIRST-like, and I hope I never see it again, especially from my own team. When my teammate and I apologized, the mentors from 772 assured us they didn't hold us accountable and were all-around very tolerant and mature about it. I was impressed and even more embarrassed by comparison. I hope they won't hold our team in a bad light because of that.

Re: Language at Championships
 

Don't worry about it guys, it wasn't a problem at all. I was actually embarrassed about how the chaperon on our side handled it, as well as her son. Without going into too much detail, I think that it's great that the teams themselves feel this sort of gracious professionalism toward each other, and it's a shame that the chaperones don't quite understand the mutual respect we share (on our side, it was a parent who just tagged along with the team).

Re: Language at Championships
 

Well, I knew I was going to be a dissenting view as soon as I opened the thread, oh well.

The fact is that as a frequent user of language (I use it almost every day in fact) there is a simple rule I go by: know your audience. If you know that your audience is comfortable with a certain level of what some people consider "vulgarity" then it is my stern belief that there is no issue with it. The fact is language is used as a communication tool, if expletives are part of that communication then I really feel that people should lay off the "language police".

As for GP: Degrading another team is in NO WAY IN THE SPIRIT OF FIRST. Whether it is using expletives, swear words, or fine Shakespearean sonnets the fact is that being an jerk is being a jerk, no matter how you look at it.

Now for the media: It is another strong belief of mine that you should always put your best foot forward. Meaning that if I was doing a sponsorship presentation I would speak differently then if I was hanging out with my friends. The same goes for the media. Portray FIRST in the best light possible, if this would require you to tone down your language then you need to due so in the interest of the FIRST community at large.

The most common mistake new stand up comics make is that they don't know their audience. They do not know the comfort level of who they are speaking to, and therefore put off their audience. The same goes for any communication, vocal or otherwise.

Hopefully we all speak here to be understood, not just to run our mouths ;).

If you wish to respond to the content of this post I greatly appreciate it, I love other views; but remember, use your words for communication, not degradation. :)

Re: Language at Championships
 

That's the exact situation on our team as well (even the fact that her son was contributing to the problem). I'm just glad there are no hard feelings, and I feel a good bit better now.

Re: Language at Championships
 

In our pit area where I spent most of my time I hadn't thought that this was a big issue. I don't recall ever hearing any swearing or for a fact no one being mad and yelling. But one thing from being an ex-team member and as a driver are the coaches. I have on many instances been driving and have overheard team mentors on the field swearing and yelling at the drivers and/or refs. I think that's where we need to start is on the adults. If we get the adults to crack down on the swearing and anger management then they can work on their students. I know the drivers would be in more control and more cool and calm if the mentors weren't screaming in their ear. The kids lose site of what FIRST is about when they are competing because the mentors are about winning and robot driving. I have seen in once case where a mentor was screaming soooo much at a kid the the kid started to cry. That's one reason why I would like to see all student/college mentors on the field rather then adults. They can relate to them better as they know them better. Another thing I noticed are the National Chairmans award winners. Myself and another adult had walked through the hall of fame and no one that was at their display was friendly.No one said hi or do you have any questions, they just looked at you like they were better then you. If you listen to some of the members in their pit area you could be amazed at what you hear. These are supposed to be National Chairmans award winners. They are supposed to be setting an example for other teams in FIRST. These are just some of my thought from the past.

Re: Language at Championships
 

There are two types of team members and mentors:

Those who want to be FIRST.
Those who want to be first.

Those who want to be FIRST are and do exactly what FIRST represents and do and act the same as well. Those who want to be first, do what being first represents: being the top, being the king, doing what it takes and not careing too much for their surroundings. To some, competition is a driving force and if a trophy is not in their hands or a trophy is in their hands, FIRST suffers a loss for Gratious Professionalism......or do we? Possibly the greatest evidence of FIRST, is the teams that show the winning teams how to be FIRST.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I completely and utterly agree with everything you just said.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I believe that people are offended WAY to easily. We all hear bad language at school/work and let it bounce off us.

that said, when you are atm a competition, you represent your aschool, town, state and sometimes even country. Think about what you say before you say it and be professional.

Re: Language at Championships
 

Using the word "gay" as a synonym for "bad" is far more offensive to me than any swear word, and it seems to be used so often by high school students.

Topic: I totally agree with everyone who is disappointed about the cursing and general non-GP behavior sprouting nowadays; what can we do about it? I think the best way is to begin within our own teams. Lead by example, and don't be afraid to tell someone when he or she is out of line.

Re: Language at Championships
 

Robotics teams are excellent vehicles for developing not only your engineering skills and talents but your social skills and your abilities to communicate, make wise judgements, apply common sense, and respect flexibility.

You don't wake up one day and become social or eloquent. These are skills you practice just like you practice driving the robot. It isn't something that you do when a judge walks by, it is something you do in the shop or the garage when things are getting a little tense.

'Dance like you are two and no one is watching' is a common phrase these days. Speaking with grace and dignity like Woodie's grandmother is near could be a common practice among FIRSTers.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I didnt notice it as much at championships (I think I was too busy!) but I had noticed it more earlier this year with our team. The kids finally learned better than to swear or say anything rude in front of me... as they would get (they dubbed it) "the look of death". Its kind of funny, we all laugh about it, but I think they all dont ever want to see it too!

Now I was a kid too, and my mouth isnt always clean... but there are times where it just isnt necessary... I dont mind it if they hurt themselves, or if there is a situation where someone is really really frustrated... but its the casual throwing around of swears and things like that that I frown on and tried to condition my team against. Why bother if it might offend someone? Surely there are other words you can use...

We dont make our grandmothers proud by swearing in front of them, so why should it be commonplace?

Re: Language at Championships
 

You are SO right here - we have sponsored Little League baseball for many years in our community. In some years, we have had terrible situations with coaches (not often, thankfully) and parents browbeating kids over their performance, because they see the trophy as the accomplishment - and you can guess how those kids acted toward each other and their opposing teams! In other years, coaches have banned parents and kids who act ungraciously both on and off the field, and regardless of whether they came out on top, everyone had a great time.

On our team, we make sure that the students and mentors understand and agree that FIRST principles are the most important and that people are watching and listening to us all the time. We want to win - who doesn't? - but not at the cost of our personal character and gracious professionalism.

Re: Language at Championships
 

makes me think of a "mantra"...change it to suit your own team...Now, just repeat after me....

"I am here to have FUN each and every minute"
"I am here to be INSPIRED and learn from as many people as I can"
"I am here to be RESPECTFUL to my teammates, mentors, school, and sponsors"
"I am here to be SENSITIVE to others in what I say and do and how I act"
"I am here to be TRANSFORMED into a new person"

Funny.....those things add up to FIRST (what a capital idea!)

Re: Language at Championships
 

Thats definetly the same thing for me. Using Gay in a derogatory way shows ignorance. It's the same thing as using Straight as a synonym for bad...it just doesn't make any sense, does it? If you mean "bad" then say "Bad" for goodness sake.

Re: Language at Championships
 

I happen to agree with the language being used by students and every once and awhile you will also hear it fly out of a mentor or an adult body surrounding the team. FIRST like many has said is a high paced sport, things that go on during a 2:10 match take many peoples breathes away. As the generations grow older and FIRST becomes more advanced in its game making we will probably hear more "bad" words being used. Personally even though the Mentors / Coaches or the adult bodies that be are responsible for how their team reacts during an event I strongly believe that students on the team should be held accountable and should know when too much use is to much, with having said this, I also strongly believe and agree that FIRST should give more responsibility to their assigned Judges in watching the teams overall performance and if necessary void a teams ability to win an award based on the language used. One bad apple spoils the bunch, One too many cooks spoils the soup. Yes its hard to watch & hear everyone during an event but keeping an ear out for such words should not be hard to do. Espicially when those who use it make sure its said loudly. Your actions not only reflect who you are but what your apart of, those who wanna use bad language will cost the team alot of glory but not winning say the team spirit award or a different award based on the teams ability to being appropriate.The other way to solve such problem can be delt with on the teams level by enforcing a bad language rule. Those Members who decide to use obscene language should be discharged from the team for any amount of time the coaches seem fit or indefinitely depending on how often the student uses the word.

I admit I use bad language that just about everyone else uses but there is a time and place for it all, one place it should not be is at any FIRST on non-FIRST sanctioned event. You may use it within the privacy of your own home or neighborhood not in a spectator friendly sport.