[A. Leese]

Now for me to add my own comments on ESPN coverage..

I didn't start out in FIRST when I was in ninth grade like most people. I started in FIRST in 7th grade. I didn't even want to do it. My dad was the teacher representative from MCHS and dragged me to the meetings. One day when I was in sixth grade he brought home a video of a bunch of kids acting like idiots all over EPCOT and driving little robots all over the place to earn score. He also showed me what I believe was a team's Chairman's Award submission. Then I got interested. Soon my dad had copies of all sorts of competitions and we watched the nats of 97 on ESPN that April. I fell in love with FIRST. I didn't care that the coverage was bad or that they didn't show all of the mathes. To my seventh grade mind, it was the most awesome competition I had ever seen before. ESPN doesn't air the competitions for the sole purpose of those of us who missed competitions to watch them, but also to get kids (of all ages..eg engineers..oops! did I say that out loud?) interested in it. You could have the worst video coverage you could imagine and it would still inspire someone to want to get involved.

~Angela who never thought she would say that much, but oh well..she's got half an hour of class left