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Unread 20-03-2004, 20:39
Gabriel Gabriel is offline
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#1409 (Fightin' Llamas)
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Great Barrington MA
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Re: UTC Regional Updates

To 195:

I've been on three different teams and for some reason I've always ended up doing the politics. Quite frankly, I hate it. The only thing worse than going up to a team that you like and respect and begging to get picked is not picking a team that you do like and respect. The whole thing can get ugly and personal. Unfortunately there's a juxtaposition in FIRST between "gracious professionalism" and winning. Usually its an easy decision, and FIRST does a great job rewarding and encouraging teams to be gracious professionals, but sometimes there is pressure to win. ESPECIALLY during the pre-finals politics a lot of teams do some pretty humiliating things, lie, betray friends, you know what I'm talking about. Its not fair, but when it comes time to jostle into position for the finals the goal becomes winning - there's no incentive for it not to be - and people start to "play strategically." My point is that the people in charge of politics aren't bad people, they just seem to have a different goal than everyone else - to win and thats because of how the competition is set up. It hurts to have to pack up at 1:00, but you just have to learn and move on. Hey, at least you guys get to play at more than one regional! I'm hardly a model of a zen FIRST guru, I was fuming at another team this morning and I regret it, but the more I do FIRST the more I realize that you can't be cynical about it, you have to buy into the FIRST mission and concentrate on the important stuff and that isn't winning and it isn't other teams. At least thats the way to avoid an ulcer.

For what its worth, you guys epitomized gracious professionalism and you fought incredibly hard. That last match against 181 and 782 was really exciting.