[Madison]

Gracious Professionalism is embodied by purity of thought and deed.

It means treating people with respect and equality even if you they're your competitor. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be involved.

It means working toward achieving the goals of FIRST by providing students and mentors alike with every opportunity to learn from one another. It means getting students to see that there are more important things than winning a trophy or making a lot of money. It's about showing them how rewarding it can be to overcome challenges without fanfare and without recognition, but overcoming them nonetheless. It's about reinvigorating a generation of adults who may have forgotten what it means to see opportunity and promise in every problem.

It means appreciating the effort and commitment that people make toward the team and the program. It means realizing that we give of ourselves and it's a privilege to have our involvement.

It means standing by your word and acting with dignity and respect and conviction. It means challenging convention without getting media attention or awards. It means being part of a movement, not an individual. But, it means focusing on the individual and getting them to join the movement. It means changing the world.

Overall, I am concerned that many new teams in FIRST haven't yet grasped these concepts, but I don't doubt that many of them will grow wise in their years and begin to understand and appreciate the genius of these ideas.

810, however, has shown this weekend that it is a great disservice to gracious professionalism. We did what we could to help other teams, certainly. Where we had parts or tools that another team needed, we tried to share them.

We invited Melissa up from Florida to be our guest. I am appalled with how she was treated by my team's students and advisors. One day, our advisors solicited her help with the team's human player coaching, while the next, she was told that she's not a real member of our team, and her input was not valued. She tried to offer suggestions to get our robot running and was insulted by another student. She was promised an opportunity to practice her own human player strategies before her team competes next weekend, but had the offer rescinded by our team's advisor.

At a team meeting on Friday evening, other team mentors and students vocally insulted me and my efforts (outside of my presence) to bring innovation, acclaim and success to the team. I have given every effort toward supporting the team and making the robot work as designed, despite the immense prejudice I have experienced. I have spent the past 9 months tolerating off-color remarks about me, my life, and family from both the students and advisors because I was dedicating to helping the good, appreciative students. I was asked for my input regarding who our drivers and human players should be, and I was told that my input would be implemented. When it became convenient however, that immediately changed and my effort and my input became worthless. I, like Melissa, was used.

The few students on our team who truly put in time and energy on the team watched as their accomplishments were compromised and their meaning destroyed as the team's advisors handed the controls over to students who's involvement didn't approach half of what they'd done -- all because the other students' parents were present.

Gracious professionalism is not about taking advantage of those who offer you help, and it's not about saying one thing while doing something entirely different. It's not about letting personal prejudice in the way of inspiring your students. It's not about attending events only if and when you're certain you'll take home some trophies.

The only way things will change is if people know what's going on. Awareness leads to action. Team 810's behavior, with a few exceptions (Ian W. and SuperDanman, of note to CD posters since they each post here often) has been nothing short of disgraceful and disgusting this season. The way the administrators have treated their sponsors and benefactors is deplorable, and the example they've set for their students is damaging. The efforts of the students have been lacking, to say the least, and their propensity for passing the buck and shirking their responsibilities is disheartening. I stayed on to try to steer this team in the correct direction, but I have failed spectacularly. Their only concern is winning and appearing to be fulfilling the mission of FIRST. It's nothing but a clever deception, but now we've opened up the curtain for the whole world to see.

Please, everyone, whenever you deal with 810, know what you're dealing with.