Quote:
Originally Posted by DDAwg3
Personally I found this match the exact opposite of what is suppose to be one of the biggest elements of FIRST -(Gracious professionalism) not with play like that......they had the match wrapped up and still went and put not just one but two robots up for the additional 60 points. I feel they should be ashamed not applauded. As amentor I would not of allowed that by my team.
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I have always found this take on things within FIRST puzzling. It seems that within the last few years (probably post-2001) there is an increasing school of though that some how if a team plays the game to win they are just being bullies and it is not gracious professionalism.
I have to say I reject that. Dean likes to talk about "coopertition" but frankly FIRST is still a competition and that is what makes it fun, that is what makes FIRST work, that is what makes the business world that FIRST tries to hard to emulate work. Without it we are stuck with something as horrific as 2001.
Lastly, from a strategy point of view I can say that over the years I have seen lots of teams who have taken the approach of being gracious professionals on the playing field loose by taking some of their balls/whatever and giving them to the other team. On the playing field I think a team has every right to compete, play hard (within the rules), and play to win. As long as that team can go up and shake hands with the alliance after, that is what gracious professionalism is about. Perhaps the best example of my thinking on this is there are teams who will play quite hard on the field perhaps even damage a robot from the opposing alliance but the
true test of gracious professionalism is when that same team goes over and helps the opposing team that they damaged fix their robots for the finals. That is how it is supposed to work. Sadly if we want to talk about "ungracious professionalism" this match was the least of what I saw in terms of ungracious professionalism.
Respectfully,
Justin