I would not exactly equate being declined for an alliance partner the same as being slapped in the face. The smile on the alliance representative's part may have been due to nervousness or the sheepish feeling that she felt for having to go up there and decline your offer in the first place. Take it from her perspective, it is quite a bit to go up there and say something to the entire arena full of people, when a decision that you may or may not have had to make will influence the rest of your team's performance at this regional or when you hear a couple hundred different voices shouting out different team numbers. (As an aside, that is the other biggest beef I have with the process. When a team representative does not know who to pick next and this is evident to the crowd, a chorus of voices shout out a bunch of different team numbers. Theres nothing wrong with supporting you team, I just find it aggravating. It's hard enough to go consciously up there without a list.)
Semantics may appear to matter in the heat of the moment, but if I were to call them out all the time, I could just as easily have said the same about "actually being happy with it". Its just a smile, just a gesture. She did not say something ridiculous or outrageous, simply declined your offer, much in the same way as I am sure your team would if you felt that the team asking for your help would not be suited to your robot.
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Originally Posted by J_Horning
We were fourth at West Michigan. We were there because we had AWESOME alliances throughout the qualifying matches. We wokrd very well as a defender, sometimes shooter and an excellent driver. When we chose team 70 as a partner, the young girl replied with a giant smile "Team 70 graciously denies". What's up with that? Semantics do matter when you are actually slapping a team in the face. At least she might have said "regretfully declines" OR "reserves the right to choose our our partner." WHOA! Then Team 494 (same high school as Team 70) did the same thing.
Team 808 would like to thank a ton of teams for the great partnerships in WMR. And to 573 and 515 who accepted our request to join us in the tournament, thanks for actually being happy about it!!!!
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