[patrickrd]

During the first pick of the alliance selection at NYC, the top seed chose team 505. After waiting around for about a half minute for a member from team 505 to show up, a student came in from the pits (i believe) and [visibly unsure of what he was supposed to be doing] declined the choice. As many of us know this automatically disallows your team to be chosen by any other team. This was clearly *not* a logical choice and not what 505 wanted. However, the announcer immediately escorted the student off the stage after he said they decline and did not even say something like "this will disqualify your team from being selected by other teams. are you sure?". While technically the team should have known the rules and should had an informed student ready to make the decision, I feel in cases like this the ramifications should be explained and the decision should be confirmed. Instead, the weekend of a great team was suddenly spoiled in a matter of seconds. Other thoughts on this?

- Patrick