Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
Comments like this will mute out the valid points that you do have. I know you are frustrated, but if you make your points in a professional and respectful way you will have a better chance of being taken seriously.
Paul
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Amen, Paul. This is excellent and I totally agree.
To many others:
Being frustrated with a game or with a referee's call is not new in FIRST. Were people frustrated when alliances were added in 1999? Heck yeah. Were they frustrated when defense was taken away during the 2001 4-0 game? Oh, yeah. Were teams at IRI frustrated when the head ref DQ'ed the entire 71-93-111 alliance in the final match in 2002 for inadvertent entanglement? Um, yeah, there was some frustration. Were teams frustrated with the triangle zone penalty in 2005? Yes, those penalties decided matches too.
Did some people get very upset at FIRST and these key volunteers? Yeah, that happened. However, people showed this frustration in different ways. Some had to vent about it, loudly disagreeing with the ruling. Others would lob insults to the folks who they disagreed with. To me, this shows the true character of a person. How does a person act when everything seems to be against them? Are they still a positive role model, or are they not careful about tossing these insults while students are around? Are they quick to judge and fast to pick a side without knowing all of the details, or do they wait for the full story and careful to figure out what all is going on before making a rash judgement?
This program has not survived and grown for 20+ years by people who overly freak out when things are not exactly how they wish them to be. We have helped FIRST progress each year by being graceful under pressure, handling change well, and focusing on the big picture moreso than details which need to be improved.
Believe me, there are things I don't like about this game. I wish that the human players would not be able to cause G40 so easily and I wish that the wide open geometry of the field did not cause so many other fouls and I wish that the ball re-entry had a better system than it does now. However, we can play this game like it is, with hopefully some continued improvements between now and the Championships.
Thanks for listening,
Andy B.