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I agree that under the qualification point system teams that attend multiple regionals (even as many as 4) have an increased opportunity to accumulate qualification points, and therefore a better chance of making nationals. However, to normalize points based on regionals attended may not be the best solution, as this may decrease team attendance at regionals. If a team does exceptionally well at its first regional and wins the regional as well as two awards, by attending another regional you risk losing your automatic qualification berth for next year, etc. What's the right thing to do concerning normalizing based on regionals attended? I have no idea, but I thought I'd toss these scenarios out and give everyone something to think about.
Additionally, someone commented that by not normalizing points at each regional, there will be more travel between east and west coast teams. I doubt this will be the case. I think stronger regionals will lose participation, and weaker regionals will gain participation, but only from a very limited area due to travel costs and budget restrictions. Is it fair as presented by FIRST? Well, between the Atlantic Coast regional, Long Island regional, and New York City regional, an average of 34 teams attended. 64 teams attended the Great Lakes regional, and 67 attended the Virginia regional. Awards are much tougher to come by when competing against twice as many teams. As are finalist and champion berths. But I can't say that they are more competitive, as the Midwest regional had the smallest number of teams attending (30), but had some great teams. I fear that it may have a smaller number of teams in the future despite a growing FIRST community, as teams realize their only chance to qualify may be to avoid the collection of historical powerhouses that attend, and use their limited budgets to attend a different regional. Is normalizing based on the number of teams fair? Perhaps. I don't see a more fair way of doing it at this time.
I agree that the remaining original teams deserve a large amount of credit. Let's name awards after them (not the sponsors, but the team), rather than handing out life-time free rides.
The Chairman's Award is different. As Joe pointed out, FIRST does believe this is the most significant award, and is now beginning to show it. However, I am a part of the group believing that perhaps a 10 year auto-berth is appropriate, as lifetime berths will continue to take away spots from at-large teams, and the number of at-large teams is growing at a tremendous rate.
Just my thoughts.
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