[smurfgirl]

Towards the end of the qualifying rounds at the Championship this year, we were in second place in our field, so a lot of teams came over to our pit to talk to us, in hopes of becoming an alliance partner in the elimination rounds. Everyone got forwarded to me, as I was the drive team coach and I was going to be the team representative for alliance selections. I have a lot of good memories from talking to everyone, but there's one moment that stands out in my head. A member of a rookie team was telling me about his team's robot and what they could do to be a great alliance partner. Then all of a sudden he stopped and put his arm around my shoulder, and he says, "and if I may add, you're looking quite nice... I know we'd make good partners." As funny as it was at the time (although I don't think it was intended to be), that definitely crossed their team off our list of potential alliance partners.