[Beth Sweet]

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!!!!

I too found her actions a little bit strange until I thought them over a little bit. Looking back on her smile, it seemed like one more of uncomfortableness than of happiness. No one likes turning down alliance requests because everyone can sympathize with the person being turned down. I also think that she had meant to say decline instead of deny.

I must warn mentors though, be careful what you wish for. I told our student that went out for selections not to graciously accept. Thus, he went out and said "Yeah dude!" :shakes head: