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I'm going to attempt to summarize both sides:
The argument for allowing all previous Chairman's Award winners into nationals is understandable and logical. Chairman's IS FIRST's highest honor, and teams must demonstrate unprescidented spirit, sportsmanship, and involvement in their communities. Therefore, the honor and dignity of a team number is and always will be associated with that award.
The argument against allowing previous winners is also understandable and logical. The basic concept is that teams change with time. I've experienced this firsthand- my first year involved with a team officially was in 2000. Back then, myself, and all team members cheered universally for all teams at the competition, regardless of whether they were an alliance partner, or an opposing alliance. We cheered for everyone simply because we had a great time. The next year, a number of the founding/core members of the team graduated and moved on, away from FIRST. There was still some level of spirit left at competitions, but it was more limited to cheering for our own team than other teams. By 2002, all founding/original members had graduated and moved on, leaving a handful of members from the previous 2 seasons, and a rush of new members. Cheering had become more scarce, and usually only when our robot was doing well in a match. This past season was the worst yet, where the cheering was limited to about 5 of the more experienced members, and only when our team name and number were announced prior to each match.
The point is, teams DO change with time, as members enter and graduate, mentors come and go. While some teams spirit, enthusiasm, and involvement increase with time, others decrease, and as the FIRST spirit torch is passed from generation to generation, I feel it sometimes looses some of it's warmth and glow, as the new members take it up, and are not quite sure what to do with it.
I remember in 2000, there was a match where one robot was flipped onto it's side. It wasn't their alliance partner who came to their aid though, it was an opposing robot who intentionally knocked them back on track. For me, that moment defined Gracious Professionalism, and I've not seen a match to date where opposing robots would help each other like that, despite the number of flippings that occured in this past year's competition.
In closing, I agree with previous Chairman's Winners attending nationals, but I more than understand Jessica's position on the subject. If a team changes, even just a little bit, from year to year, eventually the changes will drown out what a team once was, or where it came from. I realize this is not always the case, and there are many, many teams out there which are still tried and true to what they were founded on. However, it does pose the original question of the thread- are those teams (and at this point there may not be any, but 10, 20, 30 years from now) that aren't true to what their team had been upon winning the award still eligable to attend nationals year after year?
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