[Adam Freeman]

Joe,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I am pretty sure the team in question is mine, since we played together this weekend in match 64 @ Northville.

I apologize for not being more open to discussion about strategy before the match. I typically try to let the other teams tell me what they'd like to do during the match and as long as it doesn't put the match at risk I try to be open to letting them show of what they can do.

In this case, I do not remember the discussions we had before the match...so I cannot comment on how open or un-open I was to your strategy suggestions.

In most cases, we have a pretty set strategy that we run during each match. After Hybrid, we try to grab the balls off the alliance bridge since they are an easy source of balls and clears them away from the bridge to help eliminate balls from jamming under the bridge when our partners are balancing. Again, since I don't specifically remember the discussions... I can't say if we discussed us performing that task or not.

I will apologize for my driver. As a drive team we tend to be very focused and aggressive on the task at hand when a match starts. This match was very important to us, since we had a chance to clinch the #1 seed. Not that it is a reason to be non-gracious or un-professional. We teach our drivers to do exactly what I say, when I say it....so if I told them to get the balls off the alliance bridge, thats what they were focused on. Since there was some confusion about who was going to the bridge...I am sure they were just frustrated they could not accomplish that task. I know that he was not trying to ram into you, it was just an accident. I remember him yelling for you to move and I believe I told scoled him to relax and stop yelling. What I didn't do and should have is come and apologize after the match.

We worked with your team multiple times this season (Waterford and Northville), both as Alliance partners and Cooperative partners. I have talked to your drivers many times discussing strategy and coop plans. I was under the impression that we worked together pretty well.

With regard to attempting to talk strategy to our people in the pits. They have no control over what happens on the field, so they usually direct teams to come find me. Since there is plenty of time during queuing to do all the strategy discussions, thats typically when I start talking to our partners.

I would strongly disagree with your statement that our pit is unapproachable. We have students available at all times to discuss our robot and mentors there to help them if there are questions they can't answer. Unless the robot is completely damaged and needs work, I have never seen anyone "blown off" if they needed help or had questions.

Our team agrees 100% with your statement about helping rookies and any other team that needs help. We had students and mentors all over the pits helping teams with whatever they needed. Since our team is large enough we can do both perform on the field and help others.

Are we "elitist", I don't believe so. Are we aggressive, focused, and driven? Yes! We believe we have a very good robot this year, capable of meeting our expectations for this year...if we continue to work hard and improve every single match.

Again, I apologize for not being open to your strategy suggestions and for our actions during the match. I will keep this in mind during furture strategy discussions with teams and will try to keep both mine and my driver's emotions in check during the match.

I wish you would have come talk to me yesterday after this incident. 470 was on our list of potential partners and we came very close to selecting you with the 24th pick.

Sorry,
Adam