[JustinRueb1891]

As a driver last year in our team's first ever Championship appearance, I was extremely surprised at how many teams were "elitist". As a small team without a lot of funding, we only go to the Utah regional each year, admittedly one of the smaller regionals without a lot of "superpower" teams. Last year we did fairly well and made it to the semifinals, losing to the winning alliance, and qualified to Championships through the Regional Chairman's Award. Though everyone was highly competitive, even the top teams were easy to work with/against and we all had a lot of fun. At Curie field, however, there were numerous occasions where we were simply told what to do without anyone allowing our input on strategy. Another problem was that as a student, our field coach was frequently pushed aside in strategy discussions by mentor coaches. I'm sure that no one actively tries to do this, but at some point younger or weaker teams get the impression that the top teams are the elite and the rest of us are simply annoyances that must be dealt with in quals.