Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyler Olds
<soapbox>
John,
When a student tells me that the entire regional has to wait because he is waiting for a text to make a selection, I believe that I have full grounds to have him put his phone away. What if something happens and he does not recieve a text back? Are we supposed to wait and wait and wait?
The alliance selections are supposed to be a fun and exciting process; if 3000 people are waiting because your team has not prepared your student with a comprehensive list (especially when you are a 5+ year team), then it dulls the moment while he is waiting for a text. We do not have time to let each team take 5 minutes to make a pick (16 picks x 5 minutes = 1 hour and 20 minutes).
The shouting believe it or not, makes it a much more fun process for other teams to be heard that they want to be picked. It tends to remind me of an episode of the Price is Right.
Moral of the story: Have your team member prepared and you won't run in an issue at all and you won't have to go to CD posting in different sections your dislike for what happened.
</soapbox>
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Tyler, the issue was not that he was not prepared with a list of teams, but the alliance captain wanted to selected a team that was not that high on our list and our representative wanted to ensure it was an ok selection. All the decisions on 1732 scouting/strategy is a collaboration between myself and several key student scouts and alumni, and I wanted to ensure alliance selection is another collaboration. Thus, our student team lead (who drives and thus doesn't know much about the other teams), asked if he could use his cell phone during alliance selections so all of our scouts could sit together and discuss the selections. So, while it may seem we were not prepared, we were actually very prepared and ensured before hand that our system was within the rules and would be allowed. I'll be honest, I have a ton of respect for you, but I don't appreciate you publically stating we were not prepared for alliance selections when that was not the case.
I do agree that time is a factor, but I would rather have a 2 or 3 minute limit and allow cell phones/computers/smoke signals/white boards. Having teams shout their team number or having student looking at the screen completely lost on who to pick, does not make anyone look good; just not very professional looking, in my opinion.