[Navid Shafa]

I would like to share with the CD community what Kevin Ross, the founding Chairman of FIRST WA had to say about the Central Washington Regional:


Kevin Ross
The Best Worst Day ever

Gracious professionalism is very easy when everything is going your way. When you are happy, GP is just the icing on the cake. GP is, however, only mastered when you can muster the strength to be gracious and professional in the face of extreme disappointment.

It is hard to imagine having a tough day at an FRC regional. It happened on Saturday in Ellensburg. Match three of the finals initially came up as a tie, and the tie breaker rule was used to give the win to the Blue Alliance. Almost immediately after announcing the win to the audience, it was discovered that a red Frisbee was incorrectly tallied, meaning that the Red alliance had actually won. The FTA’s, Referees, and Scorekeepers did extreme due diligence to insure that the new information was correct. In the end, the final decision was reversed and the Red Alliance was given the final victory.

Walking out with our MC Blair to inform the audience and the teams about this decision was by far the single worst thing I have ever had to do in the FIRST world. This was really going to be painful. Honestly, I was unprepared for what happened next.

The reaction from everyone in the room when the details were announced was so perfectly gracious professional, I don’t think I could have scripted it better in a bad after school movie. There were no outbursts, there were no stomped feet, there were no boos or cheers. There was a measured, thoughtful, and serene reaction to the news.

I don’t believe it is possible to be more proud of 50 teams of high school students who at once felt extraordinary empathy for their friends on the Blue Alliance ; of the 3 teams on the Red alliance who even though they had won the event by playing their game still offered to give up their win ; of the 3 teams on the Blue alliance who were suffering incredible disappointment yet acknowledged that it was the correct thing to do.

The one group that honored gracious professionalism the most, however, are the volunteers who initially missed the red Frisbee in the goal. Gracious Professionalism encompasses integrity and honesty. It took a lot of courage to initiate and come forward to admit this mistake and to work through the amazing range of horrific emotions that followed. They are working in the system they were provided by FIRST, and there was obviously a hole in the process for scoring.

The Red Alliance teams felt very bitter sweet and awkward in their win. I acknowledge that. I also ask them to let it go. The correct teams did win the event, and I applaud your teams not only for winning, but being so incredibly gracious and professional about the way that it happened. I can imagine any other high school sport where a incident like this would be followed with such grace.

So I leave this experience with an extraordinary appreciation of how the FIRST community can be unified in their grace and empathy for their competitors. We should all be extremely proud.