Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur
Personally I find it humerous when people talk about FIRST and professional sports. Professional athletes are paid to win. They are not paid to be sportsmanlike, role models, or even to be gracious. Therefore their only goal is, and should be, to win. This single mindedness, regardless of other outcomes, is what makes them professional athletes.
If you want to equate FIRST to sports then you should look to groups like Little League, where the players play, and coaches coach, for the love of the game. Where being a good sport is as important as a good athlete.
It is my deepest hope that FIRST never reaches the point of the professional athlete ... and always remains 'Little League'
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Even non-professional athletes have alot of the negitive aspects and the 'win at all costs' mentality. At may universities, the term 'student-athlete' is a joke. Instead of worring of FIRST becomming like the professional sports, we should be worring about it becomming like college/high school sports. I would assume everyone wants FIRST to expand and gain more publicity. What if more colleges see how special FIRST is and how those who participate have a great head start going into college in engineering. Like sports, what if they 'recruit' students through FIRST to go to their colleges. Perhaps some students who want to go to the top schools feel their team needs to win and do well to get noticed by these top schools so they try to 'win at all costs' and truely forget about the purpose of FIRST. I think this possble problem is still years down the road, but you never know what will happen.