[Andy Baker]

First of all, thank you all for the support. Cory and Tyler, thank you for the kind words. Amanda has a great point - it doesn't matter who makes these calls, they are tough to make and they eventually are just the way things are going to be.

As far as the booing, I really could care less since it was directed at me. A ref is a target. If there were people booing at a certain team that is another issue entirely. Also, the boos were not that much. 4 guys sound about right. More importantly, once the boos were heard, there was an overwhelming surge of applause by the rest of the crowd. I was not insulted or put off.

The Portland Regional was quite an experience. While I was disappointed that the field did not work as well as it should've, that did not overcome the overwhelming experience that I had. Simply put, the Portland teams are awesome.

Get this...

During this match, there was a negated hang and a very questionable entaglement. One team was trying to push a hanger and got their hook caught up in the other team's winch strap. After MUCH (too much) deliberation, I announced that the hang was not allowed since the hanger's hook was still being forced against the coupling. However, I also announced that the interaction between the hook and the strap was not a disqualifiable entanglement. The team who had their hang deemed not worth 50 points (and a few booed) won the match by balls and could've been DQ'ed by entanglement.

The 3 teams who lost this match are amazing. While they lost their chance to go on to the finals (it was the deciding match of the semi-finals), they did not give me any crap about it. They were disappointed and wanted an explaination, so I gave it. However, they acted very appropriately and showed much GP.

I relish the experience I had as referee in Portland. Many other tough calls had to be made in other matches and the teams competed well and were graceful along the way. Even when I screwed up one of the finals matches by disabling the wrong team, teams were graceful. I would chalk this experience up to being very frustrating with the FIRST field and scoring program, but also very rewarding from the angle of getting to know the teams and dealing with them through a tough competition.

For those of you out there who were thinking that the Pacific Northwest Regional was a easy ride or a regional with a bunch of weenie teams, you better think again. These teams fought hard for the championship. There were the tough veterans and the amazing rookie teams. They had shifting gearboxes, big ball handlers, funnel-bots, and many hangers. These robots had telemetry systems and sleek tread designs that looked better than anything I ever designed. Also, these teams helped each other out. We saw teams working on each other's robots, lending parts to each other during the elimination rounds and large cheering sections. It was quite impressive. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought that I was in Ypsilanti, Evanston, New Jersey, or Hartford. These teams in the NW have arrived... the rest of FIRST better watch out.

Andy B.