Quote:
Originally Posted by P.J.
I've been telling people for a few weeks now, since the incidents at Toronto, that I was glad to be in Michigan. Glad because I thought we were above all this. I thought that we were all competing together trying to better each other, avoiding petty conflict.
Now I see that I was wrong. Threads like this make me sad. Why try to call someone else out on a public forum? That is what isn't GP. You may think you were being anonymous and concealing the team's identity, but it took me about 30 seconds to guess which team it was and then look up matches to confirm it. That's what isn't GP, trying to garner sympathy for yourself while also tearing another team down.
I'm not saying their actions were entirely acceptable, if that's really what happened, I feel you may be exaggerating a little, but that's neither here nor there. But I will say this, their actions were no different from tons of other drive teams/coaches that I see all the time. I've refereed four events this year (including Northville) and there are a lot of teams that are WAY less GP than the team in question. I see coaches yelling and screaming and running over to yell at other people all the time. And this is good teams, bad teams, average teams, simply put everyone.
If this is HOT, which I will not say for certain because the OP hasn't confirmed this, I can tell you this. They are some of the best people to work with in all of FIRST. I have several very good friends on the team, and as a whole we have always worked very well with them. Are they focused on winning? Yes. Does that make them not GP? No. As long as they don't gloat or belittle others with their success. Which I have never seen them do.
Just my opinion on this issue.
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You're right. If a team feels slighted and hurt by a veteran team, it's much much better for them to suck it up and pretend nothing happened. Much better to let the other team continue to believe they have an untarnished image in public than to bring up uncomfortable concerns with their public image. If it's HOT, well they think they're supportive and inclusive of other teams, so clearly 470 is wrong in feeling hurt and snubbed here. Because that's not what HOT intended.
Sorry, but I don't think that's the correct approach here. I think Adam's post above is highly laudable and correct in accepting the criticism and looking to improve from it. This doesn't mean Adam thinks his team is universally evil and horrible. It simply means he's recognizing that someone had a negative interaction with his team, and he want to address the issue to reduce such interactions in the future. THAT is the kind of GP response I'd expect from a team of HOT's caliber. Not shrugging the issue off and lamenting that someone had the gall to bring it up in a public forum. Huge kudos to HOT for looking to improve their team at all times like this.