[Jon K.]

When I was a senior in high school, I was the president of my team, and therefore the alliance captain. This was fine because I had also been the drive coach that year. My team was the number 1 seed at the Chesapeake regional, and when I went to choose my first alliance partner, I accidentally called the wrong team! Luckily the team I chose was not competing at that event, and I was able to fix my flub. But, then when I went to call the second team (this was before serpentine draft so it went 1-8, 1-8) the head referee, who at the time was Dr. Browne, we went to pick the second to last team. No one but my team and this other team knew we were even thinking of picking a team ranked in the 40s or 50s, but we saw potential in them and knew what they could do, so we helped get their robot going. The problem was, the field personnel didn't print the rankings that low, or had missed the last sheet, so Dr. Browne and the emcee both thought I had goofed again and were confused and looking at their sheets when up walks the team I had called. It was one of those moments that just sticks with you from your days in the FIRST® Robotics Competition. (Also, this was back before the scoring software had the team numbers in it for alliance selection)

End "Back in my Day" story.