Quote:
Originally posted by Joe Johnson
As to Chairman's Award Winners, for me this is FIRST finally beginning to put their money where their mouth is. If the Chairman's Award is the most important award they offer, as they often say, then this is a good start toward making it a reality.
|
In 250 years, the same teams will go to nationals every year (the 250 that have won chairman's awards in the past + the teams that were here forever). Every other team will never have a chance. It's a long ways off I know, but looking at extreme cases shows flaws. This flaw is that every year, more and more teams are "qualified for life", which means the chances of other teams getting to nationals are decreased each year. This
in addition to having to compete against more and more teams as FIRST grows. This will create make newer teams naturally dislike "qualified for life" teams.
And because a chairman's award winner may have won in the past -- does not mean the team necessarily still exemplifies what FIRST is about (I am in no way suggesting that any previous chairman's award winner no longer exemplifies FIRST -- I'm just acknowledging the possibility that this could happen). They should have to reprove this consistantly (eg by winning a regional chairman's award or national runner up) if they want to keep their spot at nationals. After winning a chairman's award, what's the incentive to try hard again? There are many altruistic answers but they just aren't realistic -- you need incentive to try.
I'm okay with just about everything else on the qualification list... But "qualified for life" bothers me because I think it will create great animosity among teams, and be counterproductive to what FIRST is all about. If we only look at results from the previous year or two, that is great because each team will have proven that they are worthy of being at nationals -- and there is no room for argument. Let's face it -- lots of these teams that have been around for 10 years and won chairman's awards a while back have NONE of the same people on the team and completely different philosophies. They are basically different teams -- but because they still have the seem team name and location as another team did 10 years ago, they get a free pass. I think FIRST is simply afraid not to give certain teams special treatment -- and that these teams need to speak up and acknowledge to FIRST that they want to prove themselves year after year, not get free passes.
Patrick