[Bob Steele]

I wanted to speak from the perspective of one of the Red Alliance teams.
It was, indeed, a very bittersweet win for us. i certainly applaud and appreciate the blue alliance teams for their grace after the announcement but I wanted to also say that the red alliance teams were also subdued and gracious in their response.

It was not pleasant for anyone... but it was necessary.
i know some of my younger team members started to stand up and cheer and that the older veteran members tried to restrain them... when we were announced as the winner.

The Blue Alliance teams are our friends...they sat right in front of us..we simply could not add to their disappointment by cheering a hard fought victory. It is tough to see your friends so disappointed and in emotional pain. The sweetness of victory certainly was lost and can't be regained.
I had a discussion with some members of the team and Kevin Ross came over and talked with them too. We could not help but feel that it was somehow our fault that our friends were hurt. We wanted to take the hurt away but we couldn't. Kevin was very good and explained that it was not our fault...

It was exceedlngly difficult to figure out how to act. I still don't feel right about it and it will take a long time for that to leave. We want to get over it.. but FIRST is a big family and 3 teams from our family were hurt.

Now, I didn't say this to make anyone feel bad. Mistakes are made and I am not blaming anyone... I think I just had to type it out to get some closure. It was easy to miss seeing the frisbee... and yes indeed it was a human player that threw it in... In fact right after the match, our human player told me he had hit a two pointer... It was very hard to see the red disk ... but it was found and seen by a number of people.
I know because I got several messages from the stands asking me about it. Evidently it was easier to see from the stands.

After I got the information I pondered the situation for a minute and then decided that I needed to talk to the Alliance Captain about it and the alliance captain went over to the Referees and asked about the frisbee that some thought had been missed. I honestly thought that he would come back and tell me that they had counted it and nothing would be changed.
I had no idea that this would happen.

It was really unfortunate and I don't blame anyone for anything. The referees and score keepers did their best all during the tournament and everything was perfectly fine. We had a great time and everyone was wonderful. For a new regional, everything ran remarkably smoothly.

Again, I apologize for the length of this post... but I had to say something about how proud I was of the Red Alliance (Teams 1425, 753 and 1983)... No one came down from the stands and celebrated... all three teams acted with a subdued joy of victory. During the medal ceremonies .. the teams (both alliances) showed grace and professionalism in their respect for each other as we have always done. I was very proud of every single one of them

thank you all for reading.
I hope this doesn't happen again...