This.
Picture it, Peachtree Regional 2011. 2815 is there with none of our college students (one professor popped an exam on all of them), a pretty slim crew, and a robot that was crated without much in the way of hard driving. It shows on the field Friday, when we die or break something in all but one match. I was the coach (by default, basically) and it was pretty embarrassing coming off of two solid robot years. But we keep working through the different issues, and I share the hard-luck story with a few friends on 2415 and 1771 (the latter of which we were partners with on Friday--their minibot won us a match where we broke).
We got to Saturday morning and a match with clear #1 seed 2415, where they ask if we can play defense. We hadn't had a chance to really work our arm because we kept dying, but we had a three-year driver that knew his stuff. "Suuuure!" We get one clean match off, get the win...and then break in our last match. I'm billed as the resident optimist of any team, but even I knew we had no business being in the playoff rounds. No amount of hard-sell marketing was going to change that.
Yet for reasons I still don't fully understand five years after the fact, 2415 and their first selection 1771 believed me when I said it was a new issue each time, liked working with us behind the glass, and believed our driving and defense was more desirable than the other 24 teams that were available for them to choose even if we had a glass jaw. Six matches later,
we're going to St. Louis.
Shoot straight, be positive, and sometimes you'll see your faith rewarded.