A better way to handle fouls?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

While I think the original poster's motives are sound (and his post very well written), I would absolutely hate to be in a position as a team mentor (or student) to make the call and say the other team deserves the penalty. Take a DSQ, for instance: suddenly blame starts being placed against teams rather than the refs, and bad blood is created.

I'd much rather have the ref's be the bad guys. It saves a lot of friction in FIRST.

As both a coach and a ref, I completely agree with this. I'd rather continue catching the huge flack I do in the zebra shirt than create bad blood between students that should (and likely were) cooperating very well off the field.


That said, having a better way to determine if contact is 'consequential' is a good goal. However, I don't know that asking the teams is the best way to do that, even on principle. Setting aside the potential animosity, it could well lead to punishing well-designed teams and rewarding those with less reliable systems. I've seen several 30 point climbers that could survive a serious and intentionally consequential pyramid hit. At the same time, I've seen even a few 10 pointers that can fall off even when their allies hang. In many cases, the better design and constructed a robot is, the higher their threshold of 'consequential'. Is it really fair to put that burden of a decision on them?

To those interested, we're examining the idea of more foul feedback here. Also, I've recently asked a follow-up Q&A to my initial 'please define inconsequential' request. Q576:

Does the term "the action" apply to the potentially illegal action, or to the act as a whole? Meaning, would one receive a foul for inconsequentially bushing the pyramid (G27 legal) while simultaneously preforming an otherwise legal but consequential action?

Video Replays: Get DreamWorks or the NFL to handle it for all events, then we'll talk. There's no way most places could pull it off comprehensively, quickly and reliably otherwise. I've been to events that struggle just with the standard live feed. We just plain don't have the resources to do it well--like virtually all high school teams.