[techhelpbb]

As a founding member of Team 11 and someone that's been involved in FIRST over a 20 year period, with some breaks here and there:

I never did this to win.

I helped with this:
To inspire.
To give confidence.
To expose to new things.
To prove we are together as a society.

The cost of doing this has been relatively high for me.

I am not, at all, surprised given the increasingly competitive drive in our schools that it has bled into FIRST. People will tell you this is about jobs. They will tell you it is about the future. They will tell you it's about being better than some other group. What they won't tell you is that nothing comes with guarantees. Not your schools. Not your degrees. Not winning FIRST.

So why do it? We all stand together. All of us. Not just the winners. Not just those with the highest paying jobs. FIRST has given students, mentors and teachers I know a chance to shine when: resources, education, politics and age where against them.

Let's not cling to the idea that we must know who the best is to actually be fantastic at what we can deliver as an organization. If 2 championships makes this level of experience accessible to more people and the price is a few more winners out of billions of people on Earth are we really able to justify the selection of a winner over the values we embody?

Ask yourselves this....if we are hoping to build the future...how many people do you think you need to achieve that? I bet the number is bigger than the number of FIRST champions since 1996 put together.