[Kevin Sevcik]

Arguments of getting it or not getting it and of disappointing and frustrating teenagers aside, we have to ask ourselves one simple question: What kind of example are these inconsistencies and mid-season rule changes setting for the students that we're trying to inspire?

FIRST is an organization built around the idea of inspiring students to become engineers and make a difference in the world wherever they can. As has been repeatedly stated, it's about changing the culture. What kind of culture are we trying to move towards if the FIRST organization can't train refs to make halfway consistent calls between regionals? What does it tell our students if these bad calls can be shrugged off "because the refs are just volunteers"? I'm purely a volunteer mentor on my team, and I still hold myself accountable for mistakes I make. I'm sure Habitat for Humanity would accept responsibility if one of their houses fell down from poor workmanship. Telling students to shrug off obvious mistakes and oversights made by FIRST as life lessons and such teaches them nothing about responsibility.

Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of FIRST for stepping up and accepting responsibility for the other problems they've had this year. They should continue to do so and make every attempt to prevent these problems from occuring in the future.

For instance, G25 was purportedly put in the rules because of overaggressive play last year. Why not make a short video of examples of overaggressiveness from last year? That would give refs a baseline comparison for this year. You could make an addendum from video of pre-ship scrimmages and the first week regionals. With those two videos in hand, refs would have a firm baseline for making these judgement calls, and we would likely see much more consistency.