[Chief Hedgehog]

Yes, this current system is now flawed. However, if you look back to pre-2012 when the formula was put into place, MN FIRST and the MSHSL had to come up with something - and it worked for a while. I do think it needs to be revisited.

I have an interesting vantage point. My team has made many contacts the last 4 years throughout greater Minnesota and I have been hearing of the problems with the current system. 4607 has been fortunate enough to qualify for the State tournament 3 of our 4 years - but not without help.

As a rookie team in 2013 we won the North Star Regional outright as the 2nd pick on the alliance (thank you 2175 and 967). We ended up winning the State Tournament with 2175 and 2052.

In 2014, the 5 points awarded to us as being a 'Second year team' helped us to edge out other VERY deserving teams (again at NS we were allied with 967 and 2175 - I still cannot watch that Semifinal match). However, at State we did lead the alliance (with 2530 and 3018) that ended up as Finalists - so that kind of validated our being there. In a weird turn of events we had to face off against 2175 and 2052 (and 4778) - our alliance partners the previous year. As much as I would have liked to win the State Tournament - we took the fact we had to face off against 2175 and 2052 as a major bookmark in our team's history.

This year we qualified based on RCA (I am still trying to come to grips with this). We will see how it ends up.

Now to my thoughts...
As a coach of many sports for more than a decade, I can attest to the fact that the greatest improvement for ANY team happens between the first and second event/match/game. No matter the competitive sport, there is a significant advancement following a team's first event. I am all in favor of having each team's last regional event as the qualifier for the State Tournament. I do understand the situation of low-budget teams, because my team is one. Becker does not have a large industrial/commercial base and even though our school provides the space, they do not provide any funding. Contrary to popular belief, Xcel does not provide any unusual tax base to Becker - Xcel Sherco tax base is spread out among all school districts in MN (Thank you Jesse Ventura). This last year we lost funding from our founding sponsor and it has been a great struggle as we attended two regionals. We are now in a situation where we face a negative balance and we face a $25,000 bill for worlds. We will most likely go back to 1 regional for the foreseeable future.

And contrary to most stats, we actually finished lower at our second event than we did at our first.

I am also very opposed to the gratuity points allotted to Rookie and Second year teams (even though my team benefited in the past). If we run a state tournament without Judges Awards, there should be no reason that these bonus points are allowed. Even if there were judges, there should not be bonus points based on years.

As for Chairman's Awards submissions, MN FIRST had a reason for this and I believe Jon Stratis laid this out effectively in his post. Many of the teams that I have talked to have expressed great disdain for the 10 points that are attached to CA submission. Now that MN FIRST has seen a significant rise in CA submissions, I think that their goal has been realized. However, since CA is the top award in FRC, I do believe that a team that wins this at ANY regional should be granted a spot in the MSHSL Tournament. I know that many of my colleagues disagree - but this must still be a part of the qualifications for state.

Man this is a long post. I will wrap it up with this:

In my opinion, qualifications for the MN State Tournament should go as such:

1. RCA's automatically qualify (no matter the regional)
2. MN Regional (Duluth or MPLS) Winners automatically qualify
3. The rest of the field is based upon a system where the LAST regional is the qualifying regional.