Quote:
Originally Posted by Kate Mosley
IMHO, FIRST/Dean should be trying to elevate society by elevating themselves, not by bringing other aspects down. Professional sports are a positive force in society - they encourage children to get active. Things such as robotics encourages kids to exercise their minds, sports encourage them to exercise their bodies. Both are extremely important. We have a dearth of both healthy minds and healthy bodies in our society right now, and I shudder to think of kids in FIRST refusing to play sports/get active because of these comments Dean makes, because all they want to do is build robots. Balance is key in all aspects of life, not just designing a robot.
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I completely agree. As a big sports fan, I was really rubbed the wrong way by Dean's speech. If I was a rookie and this kickoff was the first experience I had with FIRST, I'm sure I would have a very different view of FIRST than after having 4 years of it before hearing his speech. It came across as "sports only teach you how to dribble a basketball but FIRST teaches you not only engineering but teamwork, time management, communication...". Unless my experiences in team sports is different, sports do teach some of the similar lessons such as teamwork, the value of hard work, deadlines, etc, while providing excersize (which is another problem in this culture). I think it is a shame that Dean failed to recognize these benifits to sports.
In response to Tom Line, are you aware that off those examples of showboating and 'bad things' resulted in fines or even suspensions? It seems that the leagues are like FIRST in trying to act more gracious and professional.