Is a FIRST Team equal to a traditional sports team?

[thatnerdjack]

I was talking to a friend recently and we stared arguing whether our schools FRC team is as much of a team as a traditional sports team. I'm the admin captain on my team and have been a member for two (almost full) years but have never played on a sports team in HS. She plays rugby but has never been on an FRC team. When asking out friends we got mixed responses so I was wondering what everyone here had to say about it.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by thatnerdjack

I was talking to a friend recently and we stared arguing whether our schools FRC team is as much of a team as a traditional sports team. I'm the admin captain on my team and have been a member for two (almost full) years but have never played on a sports team in HS. She plays rugby but has never been on an FRC team. When asking out friends we got mixed responses so I was wondering what everyone here had to say about it.

You're asking on here, so you're going to get quite the heavy bias toward the "Yes, of course they're equal" argument.

That being said, I also think it depends on what sports team and what robotics team.
Some teams of both types don't require as much dedication or work as some others. I guarantee every member of 1678 works harder than 99% of athletes.

[asid61]

I would say they're pretty comparable. Long practices, year-round meetings (depending on the team), a somewhat clearly-defined season, etc. The only difference is that FRC is not really athletic, and there are fewer competitions/ meets.

[highlander]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

You're asking on here, so you're going to get quite the heavy bias toward the "Yes, of course they're equal" argument.

That being said, I also think it depends on what sports team and what robotics team.
Some teams of both types don't require as much dedication or work as some others. I guarantee every member of 1678 works harder than 99% of athletes.

I very much doubt that 99% number. I know a lot of athletes, and while I don't know 1678 personally (but I don't doubt their dedication considering their successes), there is no way they can compete against peak-level high school athletes who work 3-5 hours (or more) on average every single day year-round to maintain their skill level and competitiveness. Don't shortchange a dedicated athlete.

If you are comparing the average FRC team to the average sports team, the comparison becomes even more one sided since almost every high school sports team practices at least somewhat year round for quite a few hours per week. In comparison, while many FRC teams do off-season work, their time commitment again pales in comparison to sports.

However, having said that, it seems to me that during the build season, time commitment can be roughly equivalent, if not a more to high school FRC teams over high school sports teams.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by highlander

I very much doubt that 99% number. I know a lot of athletes, and while I don't know 1678 personally (but I don't doubt their dedication considering their successes), there is no way they can compete against peak-level high school athletes who work 3-5 hours (or more) on average every single day year-round to maintain their skill level and competitiveness. Don't shortchange a dedicated athlete.

If you are comparing the average FRC team to the average sports team, the comparison becomes even more one sided since almost every high school sports team practices at least somewhat year round for quite a few hours per week. In comparison, while many FRC teams do off-season work, their time commitment again pales in comparison to sports.

However, having said that, it seems to me that during the build season, time commitment can be roughly equivalent, if not a more to high school FRC teams over high school sports teams.

I very much understand that some athletes are incredibly hard-working. I was involved in Varsity Wrestling for all of high school, and I experienced quite a bit of success, and so did my robotics team. My wrestling team was consistently top 5 in the state, and my robotics team won a number of regional events.
During build season I would put in more time into robotics than I did wrestling, but during the off-season for robotics, I put more time into wrestling.
Having experienced relatively high levels of commitment in both, I don't doubt that I put in more work into either one than most athletes put into their sport.

I wasn't comparing the top 1% of both, which I find comparable, I was comparing the top 1% of robotics teams with the 99% of sports teams- where the robotics team puts in significantly more work.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by highlander

I very much doubt that 99% number. I know a lot of athletes, and while I don't know 1678 personally (but I don't doubt their dedication considering their successes), there is no way they can compete against peak-level high school athletes who work 3-5 hours (or more) on average every single day year-round to maintain their skill level and competitiveness. Don't shortchange a dedicated athlete.

If you are comparing the average FRC team to the average sports team, the comparison becomes even more one sided since almost every high school sports team practices at least somewhat year round for quite a few hours per week. In comparison, while many FRC teams do off-season work, their time commitment again pales in comparison to sports.

However, having said that, it seems to me that during the build season, time commitment can be roughly equivalent, if not a more to high school FRC teams over high school sports teams.

I'll agree that the "99%" number is overblown for 1678, but they do put in as much work as any other athletic team "in season" and quite a bit out of season. Davis HS also has the most successful athletics program in our section--I believe they have more total section titles than any other HS. So I think I have a pretty good measure of what other athletic team sports require. (I also placed in my HS state track meet and ran in the NCAA championship.)

As with any athletic team the amount of time commitment varies by student. However, I'll give you one measure I know: my son put in 250 hours in his senior year in the 6 week build season. I think that's typical of our core team. The amount of work in the competitive season has varied by is still substantial. I would put this commitment at the level of the highly competitive football programs.

Of course it drops off during the off season, but it's still about 6 to 10 hours a week from late August to late May. Some students work on special projects over the summer.

So I would say that the commitment is the same at most athletic teams. How they should be compared I'm not so sure about.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by highlander

I very much doubt that 99% number. I know a lot of athletes, and while I don't know 1678 personally (but I don't doubt their dedication considering their successes), there is no way they can compete against peak-level high school athletes who work 3-5 hours (or more) on average every single day year-round to maintain their skill level and competitiveness. Don't shortchange a dedicated athlete.

If you are comparing the average FRC team to the average sports team, the comparison becomes even more one sided since almost every high school sports team practices at least somewhat year round for quite a few hours per week. In comparison, while many FRC teams do off-season work, their time commitment again pales in comparison to sports.

However, having said that, it seems to me that during the build season, time commitment can be roughly equivalent, if not a more to high school FRC teams over high school sports teams.

For our team, I believe its the equivalent if not more, vs our athletes in our State.
The difference though is what our society/culture deems as relevant/important.

Our football players/coaches/parents and other volunteers dont have to worry about funding their own facilities, pay for their own uniforms, mowing the grass, taking care of the bleachers, paying their coaches or paying for the buses to take them to games. Our robotics team has to do all of that in addition to teaching our students robotics-related skill sets. So I guess we spend more time doing Robotics but not as much time honing our skills.

[TheModMaster8]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

You're asking on here, so you're going to get quite the heavy bias toward the "Yes, of course they're equal" argument.

That being said, I also think it depends on what sports team and what robotics team.
Some teams of both types don't require as much dedication or work as some others. I guarantee every member of 1678 works harder than 99% of athletes.

I'd have to disagree with you, I've played on a club Soccer team for 4 years and I've been apart of FRC for 4 year and I can say the Sports are more taxing on your body physically, though FRC is more taxing on the mind. Also I would not consider FRC a Sport, rather more of a club-a-tition. . . club vs. club.

[jprince58]

First off, I am assuming you are talking about Varsity sports in high-school.

In a lot of ways, this is comparing apples to oranges. They are different in many ways, and in my opinion, an FRC team has a lot more aspects to it that aren't comparable to sports, while most qualities in a sports team have comparable qualities to an FRC team. Though I can go on for hours about why I think an FRC team is the ultimate extra-curricular activity, that doesn't seem to be the discussion here. Instead, I am just going to describe the overlapping qualities, and how they compare.

Competitiveness
This one I think you have to give to sports team. In general, while most FRC teams are competitive, almost all sports teams are highly competitive. And the top competitive sports teams (like, top .1-1%) are imo much more competitive than there FRC counterparts. Some of this is due to culture, but the other part of this is that FRC does not encourage the barbaric competitiveness that is fostered in many sports programs. Many highly competitive sports programs are just at an unhealthy level of competition, and FIRST tries to not promote that.

Time Commitment
This one has so many caveats its hard to compare. I am going to break it up into the general team, like official meeting times, and then break it down further to the individual members.

On a general team basis, I think it can be pretty even across the board. My FRC team put in 13 hours a week at meetings, while my Cross Country team put in 12 hours a week at practice, making those pretty even. Generally though, while Sports teams as a whole only put in so many hours a week, the highest level FRC teams can put in a lot more hours a week. I know FRC teams, not just members, teams, that put in 40+ hours a week, which probably isn't touched by any high-school sports team in the country (probably a few exceptions, but not many). The middle-ground sports/FRc teams are pretty even, while FRc is top-heavy in time commitment.

As for individual members, there is a lot more discrepancy. For the middle-ground sports/FRC teams, the average Joe athlete probably puts in more hours than the average Joe FRC student. Again though, I think FRC is top-heavy here. The most committed members of FRC teams put in hours that could almost never be touched by even the most committed athletes (that actually, you know, go to school). And a lot of that just comes down to oppurtunity. Whereas an athlete really only has from 4-7 am and 3-11 pm on an average school day, and 4 am to 11pm on days off, an FRC member has a lot more hours to put in. For FRC, especially if you are on more of the "business" side of your team, you can basically work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, if your body would let you. I know I personally spent more time on FRC between the hours of 11pm and 4 am my senior year than I spent practicing for cross country any single year. And FRC can occur year round if you are more of a chairmans team, while many sports are just one season. At the end of the day, the FRC individual commitment has the potential to be, and is, much more top-heavy than sports, while middle-ground favors athletics.

Though there are some other apt comparisons I could talk about, my post is officially to long, so I'll stop here.

[Ichlieberoboter]

Originally Posted by jprince58

As for individual members, there is a lot more discrepancy. For the middle-ground sports/FRC teams, the average Joe athlete probably puts in more hours than the average Joe FRC student. Again though, I think FRC is top-heavy here. The most committed members of FRC teams put in hours that could almost never be touched by even the most committed athletes (that actually, you know, go to school). And a lot of that just comes down to oppurtunity. Whereas an athlete really only has from 4-7 am and 3-11 pm on an average school day, and 4 am to 11pm on days off, an FRC member has a lot more hours to put in. For FRC, especially if you are on more of the "business" side of your team, you can basically work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, if your body would let you. I know I personally spent more time on FRC between the hours of 11pm and 4 am my senior year than I spent practicing for cross country any single year. And FRC can occur year round if you are more of a chairmans team, while many sports are just one season. At the end of the day, the FRC individual commitment has the potential to be, and is, much more top-heavy than sports, while middle-ground favors athletics.

Yes. I am on chairmans and website and programming and it's legit non-stop. Like I do varsity tennis and take indoor lessons throughout the winter and spring two hours a day twice a week and over the summer I do a league that practices 4 hours a day twice a week and then in the fall we practice 3-5:30 every day after school and compete twice a week and I can still say without a doubt that I spend about 3 times as much time on FRC as I do on tennis. I work on the website a lot and plan drives and fundraisers and work on the app we made about FIRST robotics and keep track of the countries we reach and which ones are third world countries and watch YouTube videos on programming and a lot of other things about 4 hours a day, every day, no exaggeration. Off season. On season, I do it pretty much 24/7. Even during class I sit and make lists of countries and outreach and updates I could make, etc. And I'm not even one of the top teams like 1678 and 341 and 2826.

[Chief Hedgehog]

I am not certain that you can concretely compare Robotics to all other sports. That being stated, how can one compare one sport against another?

I have coached soccer at the Varsity Level for 7 years; I have coached wrestling at multiple levels for over a decade; I have now coached FRC for 3 seasons.

In terms of comparing one sport against another - it is a ridiculous task. The objectives are not equal - so the argument is moot.

FRC is a sport. Why? Because we compete. The ultimate end result is a winner. If you do not win, you lose.

Cross-Country is a sport.
NASCAR is a sport.
Golf is a sport.

All of these are sports where you compete against another person or team - but ultimately you are competing against yourself - to produce your best result.

So yes, FIRST is a sport.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

FRC is a sport. Why? Because we compete. The ultimate end result is a winner.

So is FRC not a sport in 2017?

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

So is FRC not a sport in 2017?

Yes.

[thyme]

I am a member of team 1678, and also a member of our high school's track team. I am also a black belt in martial arts. I work at a high level in all. On 1678, I am a travel team member. We choose travel team members based off of how much they put in to the team. In track, I am one of our league's leading high jumpers. (We are in a rather competitive league as well). In order to even be eligible for your black belt in my studio, you need to put in over 5 years of training.

I can honestly say that I put way more into robotics than sports. While arguing about martial arts being a traditional sport is something else, I also have my track experiences to fall back on.

People talk about the atmosphere not being the same, and I think that really depends on the sport. With track, we have a team of over 200 people. You really only get to know people in your event group, and even then what you are doing is individual. With robotics, I know pretty much all of our dedicated members, and we all work together as a team.

As for time commitments, it's hard to say. The robotics team only meets twice a week after school, and then on the weekends. However, we put in a lot of hours on those days. With track, I train every day after school, and only do things on the weekends if I qualified for an invitational meet. Things get even messier for the fact that I have to miss track for robotics, and robotics for track at different times during the overlapping seasons.

As to which one makes me more physically exhausted, again it's hard to say. Track makes me sore in a way robotics never could, but robotics makes us work longer than the track team does.

In the end, while robotics is defiantly not a traditional sports team, I think that it has a lot of similarities in a lot of different ways. But everything varies from robotics team to robotics team, and sport to sport.

Just as another note, high jump is a strange sport, but no one would argue that it is not a sport. In high jump, we make a jump, get advice from our coach on what to change in the next one, and than sit and wait for 5 to 10 minutes for our name to be called again. We have to really strategize what to do for each of our limited jumps, because every one counts in the final standing. As far as I can tell, this is a very similar experience to the drive team (granted I'm not on the drive team). The drive team plays a match, and has to focus on what they are doing in that match, and not being too mental about it (very similar to what I have to do to jump). They then finish the match, and look at how the strategy works. Then, they go and prepare for the next one. What they do in that match also has to be calculated, and they have to just do what they need to do.

For me, all of this sounds like my high jumping process, which would mean that at least at the competition level, there is virally no difference between an athlete competing and a robotics team competing.

These are all just my opinions and observations as both and athlete and robotics team member.

[highlander]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

FRC is a sport. Why? Because we compete. The ultimate end result is a winner. If you do not win, you lose.

Cross-Country is a sport.
NASCAR is a sport.
Golf is a sport.

All of these are sports where you compete against another person or team - but ultimately you are competing against yourself - to produce your best result.

So yes, FIRST is a sport.

I have to disagree. Your definition for sport is very off. Certainly all of the above are competitions, but having something where you compete simply doesn't mean its a sport.

Are marching bands a sport?
Is chess a sport?
Are math competitions a sport?
Is juggling a sport?
Do eating competitions qualify as sports?
Is the lottery a sport?

All of the above have winners, but most would not qualify as sports. Where do you draw the line? Simply having a winner isn't a sufficient answer.