[PayneTrain]

60 of FIRST's best have been recognized for their great efforts in promoting FIRST and STEM programs through their community, and being the light that shines brightest among us, and draws us together to become something greater than ourselves. Not all of them will be accepted to an Ivy League institution, but they are still people worth recognizing and likely have the ability to succeed and catalyze communities wherever they go.

Tens of thousands of kids participate in FIRST at its highest level every year. Some of them go to Ivy League schools. Some go to community college. Most go to engineering schools or state universities with engineering programs. Very few of them receive the highest honor bestowed upon a FIRST student.

I didn't get into the college I wanted. I still love FIRST. I still go to a university I like. I still wake up every day with the rest of the world and try to make myself better. The sun still rises in the East, sets in the West, and robotics meetings still go on.

I don't feel like FIRST owes me anything. If anything, I owe almost everything I am to my religion, my family, and my other religion, which is being an active participant in FIRST after I have to take my hands off the joysticks for the last time.

There is a Dean's List Finalist from 422 this year. He has no idea where he wants to go to college. I don't even know if he's even visited any schools. But he is a remarkable kid that is going to be and Eagle Scout, an FLL mentor, an outreach guru, and a future FRC team captain... he is our role model. He is an incredibly bright kid with a heart of gold and he gives the work I put into my old team more meaning now than it did when I was a student.

We didn't recognize him because we feel like he deserves to go to Oxford on a full ride and this award is going to give it to him. We recognized him, along with the judges, because he represents the best we have to offer; a combination of his innate talent of getting people from all walks of life to gravitate to him, and to a lesser extent, those of us who facilitate the support system to make his work more impactful.

If you are making every move in your life and your son's life on getting him into Yale or MIT, I guess that's your prerogative. If your intent was to use this award to catapult your son to this objective, then you're just totally missing the point, man, and there is no other way to say that.

Think long and hard before you continue the crusade of passive-aggressive blame assignment on an award and the founder of the program that has enabled so many people to come together and become something greater than the sum of their works, including you and your sun.