Where's the Gracious Professionalism?

[J-Blondie]

Alright, so Week 6 has come to an end and World Championships are fast approaching. There are still some regional/district champ competitions left to finish up before them as well. I figured I would make this post now seeing as it has been a big problem since competition began and I keep seeing more of it.

This year, the FRC community was handed a difficult game. It's a game with no endgame that is heavily based on cooperation between alliance partners. That cooperation need even went into many teams designs in order to gain the most possible points per match. It was obvious from the beginning that the game itself was going to be confusing, and that referees and other regional volunteers would have their work cut out for them each week as they faced a game which could be decided on fouls and technical fouls. A lot of people have even said that this is their least favorite FRC season, and I can understand that. It has been a rocky road for a lot of teams and there have been issues and problems that could have probably been fixed in the moment had people taken the time to fix things. But in FRC, especially at competition, not everything can be fixed between matches. I am sure the refs have tried their best this season. There are plenty of referees that are veteran volunteers and understand the importance of making good calls and quickly getting results to teams. There are also plenty of new people who had their first refereeing experience with this game and who had a challenge doing that job because of the game design. Many teams, my team included, may not have gotten the best calls sometimes. And yes sometimes it may have decided a match or two. Even though that is unfortunate, and everyone seems to want to play a blame game now, I think we all need to remember a few things.

FIRST was NOT established to be a competition based on winning. It was established to give kid of all ages a way to learn about science and technology and how it could lead them into careers that would pay off for themselves and their greater communities, countries and the world. I have been a part of FRC for 8 years and I have been in FIRST for 11 years. I have seen plenty of teams get upset about losing, or about bad calls over the years, but this year has been overwhelming with the lack of compassion I have seen and the lack of gracious professionalism. I have only worked with two different FRC teams, and the experience was great. I may not have the fame or experiences that other people have who regularly post here, but I have always been someone who needs to say something when I see big problems arise.

I think it's great to win a regional, I've been there once. I think it's great to see your team perform well and earn that championship trip via a working robot. Let's be honest here. Only 3 teams out of usually a 50 team average are going to win the regional. We all know that going in. Usually, only 3 teams become World Champions. According to the stats that FIRST gives us, there are 2,720 FRC teams total. Each one of those teams, each one of those 68,000 team members and the countless mentors all start off each season with a hope, a simple dream. We all want to win a regional, and then go on to win the world championship, but the truth is, it's not in the odds for most teams. It may be a harsh reality to face but it's true. As a mentor, I don't focus on the need to win. I focus on what the students are going to carry on throughout their lives and what will inspire them to choose a promising career that they feel confident about. I focus on helping them build memories that they will remember most about the program. As great as it would be for them to have the memory of winning, I could really care less about that.

Another thing I should touch on is that I understand that it's an expensive program and that sometimes, it's way easier to get sponsors if you have won a prestigious award, or a regional or of course the world championship. My team is a self-admitted poor team. We would love to win some awards or the regional, but we accept that it's not in the cards sometimes. I know a lot of teams and I know a lot of great mentors who do wonderful things for their students, and I'm not blaming anyone for the lack of GP this year, but I know there has been a turn in FIRST where winning has taken a precedent and has become for many what it's all about. Let's turn back from that path now while we can. All I ask is that we remember what it's about, and forget the hardships that we've had this season with the game, referees and everything else. A new season will be upon us again in 8 months. Enjoy the time whether you're going to the world championship or not. Use it to become closer with your team members over something not centered on robots. Team members can be an amazing source of lifetime friendship and fun! Especially in the off-season when the pressure is off!

I got to meet two people between last year's world championship and week one regionals this year. I got to meet Dave Lavery and I got to meet Woodie Flowers. Both of them have an awesome presence in the FIRST community and both are people who I look up to in one way or another. Meeting both of these people was just like meeting someone on my level, even though they are both well known, popular people. Both experiences helped me realize that what I love about FIRST is the people, and the attitude that we are all here for the purpose of inspiring the future generations. It's part of why I write this post, because I want more people to be like them, and to remember why we do this year after year, running off pizza and Mountain Dew and the excitement that the season brings. I won't be at world championships this year, but I hope that the gathering of so many great students and mentors has a little bit more gracious professionalism as the season draws to a close.

I also ask that any complaints to specific situations or events remain in the other threads that are discussing the problems with the game and season as opposed to this one. You can however share some awesome things you experienced this season here, because I think this season needs a little more sharing of the good things to show people that it wasn't all that bad in the scheme of things.

[Grim Tuesday]

Am I the only individual who doesn't like it when people get preachy about "gracious professionalism?" Calling out this thread for sugar coating things for people who don't really need to be taught a lesson in what FIRST is about.

I saw this quote in relationship to this thread, posted by the very popular "Robotics Memes" Facebook page. I do not believe this thread is sugarcoating things - I think it is bringing up something that is very often forgotten on this forum.

I deeply agree with J-Blondie's sentiment that FIRST is not about winning. It can't be: At a 60 team regional, only 3 teams will win. In fact, 60% of teams will not even get to eliminations. Only 15% of teams will attend Championships. The people who browse and comment on Chief Delphi are the FIRST Fanatics. They are the people who belong to teams that work countless hours, raise thousands of dollars and end up doing respectably on Saturday afternoon. Remember that when making generalizations about the FIRST community, we base them on what we know, and we know what we see on CD, which is not representative.

But let's remember all FIRST participants, and what matters to them. The memories of long nights, troubleshooting, teamwork, leadership, mentorship, inspiration, and friendship are all experiences everyone, not just the members of winning teams will carry with them in life. Those are the parts of FIRST that matter to everyone universally. The issues with one game will fade away after a few years. These other things will stay for life.

Often, all we talk about on CD is what is wrong with the game. Sure, there are problems with it. Bad calls have been made and they have decided regionals. This should not happen, and it hurts the whole community that this is what defined the year. It isn't so bad, however, that it has compromised the entire meaning of FIRST. I don't think it is worth the hurtful and non-constructive comments I've been seeing around. We need to remember what FIRST is really about. It sure isn't about winning.

[J-Blondie]

Thanks for the reply, believe me I saw my face on the Facebook page and was surprised by the quote you shared about the post. I am responding as elegantly as possible. I have no problem with criticism of what I post, as it's there to help people and try and change an attitude that has been brewing this year. I understand that mistakes have been made this season, and I understand that robots have been severely damaged or teams who should have won a match didn't because of penalties that should or shouldn't have been called and all that. I really do get it. But as I said on the "Robotics Memes" page, the solution to all that is not sarcasm and "I hate this game" "I hate the refs" "I hate that my team lost" or even "The GDC made a terrible game". I have seen all kinds of those responses and not enough "We are all human" "Mistakes were made but it's ok". I realize now it might not be ok for some teams. It may not even be ok next season, but we all know that FIRST has the teams in mind and that they try their best to fix the problems that occur. They can't fix everything though and we know that, so sometimes it's best to just ask yourselves and your team "What did we learn this year?" and "Why was this season GOOD" instead of only dwelling on the bad.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

. We need to remember what FIRST is really about. It sure isn't about winning.

This quote was sprinkled around throughout my high school robotics team. I thought I heard the last of it when I graduated, but I guess not. I really hate this statement. FIRST's mission might be to inspire, but we're all participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition. Competitions have winners and losers, and to say it's not about winning when FIRST gave us a competition is cheapening the experience and can also be derogatory for those that aim to win.

I get it, FIRST's goal is to inspire, but the competition is one of those vehicles to inspire. Building a winning robot is inspirational; watching a winning robot is inspirational; watching the teams on einstein is inspirational. Sure, we can say that teams that don't make elims at their regionals or district events can still have inspired students, I was one of those students, but I'd argue that students who work towards winning and are on winning teams are more inspired than those who sit out saturday afternoon at their regional or district competitions. Saying that there's only 3 winners at a regional doesn't mean anything. There's 30 teams in Baseball, but only one wins the world series. If it's not about winning, why don't we give every team a blue banner, and an automatic bid to Championships? Because that's not inspiring, and we all know it. No one would want to pay $5000 a year, plus additional event registration, to go to a "fair" where everyone wins everything and your performance on the field doesn't matter.

Everyone has played this game now. GDC has designed games where watching the robots perform was inspirational. GDC has also designed games that made no logical sense (I'm looking at you, Lunacy) and were dull, boring, and hardly inspiring. If FIRST's goal is inspiration, they need to make games that encourage inspiration. Calling out FIRST and the GDC for coming up with a game this hard to officiate and with so many gray areas in the manual isn't un-GP. I think throwing honest criticism and recommendations for improving team's experience is actually very gracious and very professional. As "Robotics Memes" said, we can't sugarcoat the problems of this game and call any criticisms un-GP. Granted, teams and students have had outbursts, but we all try our best to post rationally, and berate those who post while emotionally charged. Yes, there are valid criticisms with this game. Yes, sometimes it gets so bad we start beating a dead horse, but I think everyone just wants to see FIRST acknowledge our opinions and issues with the game and use that as constructive criticism to improve future games.

I never thought I'd have flashbacks to my memories of high school at this age, but reading this thread instantly reminded me of my senior year, when I was arguing to build a kitbot on steroids so we could have a competitive drivetrain, but I was told by the other leaders "FIRST isn't a sport, it's not about winning. It's about being inspired". We don't pay $5000 and put some nuts and bolts together haphazardly just to say "we're inspired". If that was the case, we could save money and enter a Science Olympiad tournament (no offense to SO) or BEST robotics. We pay this money because we want to compete with other robots in the region, we want to foster a culture idolizing STEM, and we want to buy into a system that will guide us towards that goal, and to do that, FIRST gave us a competition, a sport, to play in to win.

[Koko Ed]

This year is no different than any other year. It's not like controversy and anger have suddenly found their way into FIRST. There's just more means for folks to projectile vomit their acid online than there was ever before.
With the stakes getting higher it's only going to get worse in the coming weeks.

[Navid Shafa]

FIRST: The I stands for Inspiration.

A lot of the big issues that have arisen this season have impacted a large quantity of students, mentors and teams negatively.

No one should have to leave a season feeling shorted out of anything less than a great experience. Everyone deserves a fair chance. A fair chance to play the game, a fair chance to be heard and reasoned with, a fair chance to win, a fair chance to experience the beauty of this program.

I stand firm on everything I've said so far, simply because of this:

Many things that have happened this year are simply un-inspiring. Sure, we all like to win and some of us compete very hard to do so, but at the end of the day, I realize this is a by-product of the program. However, when we fail to uphold the very credence of our program, when we go against the very core of the Mission and Vision of FIRST, then something has to change.

[J-Blondie]

Don't get me wrong, I think winning is just as nice and it's great if your team has that goal. I enjoy winning as much as the next person. The problem I have is when people DON'T win and then try to find every excuse for why they didn't win. My point is that not everyone can win, and while it's fine to make that your goal, when you don't win don't be negative about it. I know it's expensive and I know that the kids want to win and so do mentors.

I feel like maybe the amount of exposure to the attitude of negativity is growing, but I feel like the negativity has grown in the past couple years as well. It seems that now because most everyone has to win to get to world championships that the need to win has kind of flared negativity. It's fine to express what was wrong with the season, but I think it's better to do so constructively than to just rant about what went wrong while having no plausible solution to how things can improve. It would be great if teams who were affected by mistakes or calls could try and see how it would be easier for referees to make better calls or make the job easier for them at least. Referee training and all of the volunteer training can be intimidating, even if you've been on a FIRST team.

I don't volunteer for FRC because I'm usually helping my team, but I have judged the project for FLL regionals for 3 years or so. It's extremely intimidating to read the information packet. And it's hard knowing that you have the hopes of teams and their fate in your hands, especially if you have way more deserving teams than awards, and you always do. I sure wouldn't want to be an official having to make a split second decision based on events I saw in a match while I'm being pressured to not delay the regional to carefully review every happening. I'm sure it's stressful. While many mistakes could have been avoided, it's all in the past now. FIRST is not going to review every match where mistakes were made and discuss with every team what the problems they had were, that's just a fact of reality, but I have confidence that they will work to resolve things that they do have the power to fix the best that they can. All I'm asking is that we ask for changes and try to have enough compassion as a whole to understand that bad things happen and that there's always the opportunity to move on and learn from it.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

It seems that now because most everyone has to win to get to world championships that the need to win has kind of flared negativity.

I won't argue that teams want to win so they can advance. However, the crux of the problem is not simply losing. It's the fact that many teams have been unfairly and prematurely removed from tournaments. They've had their seasons end due to incorrect rulings, missed scores or botched calls.

I am more than happy with losing if I deserved it. I think we all want our opponents to win, if they truly are better than us. GP means beating your opponent at their best, not winning or losing, because of an error or tragic mistake on someone else's behalf.

[J-Blondie]

I agree that it is terrible to lose in situations like that. However I think GP also means having compassion to try and understand the entire situation whether you're involved or standing at the sidelines. I mean at SVR, I'm sure that the head ref feels terrible about the situation that he had to resolve. But the response to his decision was immediate name calling and blaming him when it was found out later that the information on what call to make came from HQ. It's just something to think about. A lot of refs understand what it's like to be on a team. Those who had to make decisions on the fly and had to do their best and then come home to face such negativity, name calling and general rudeness I'm sure won't be willing to come back next year. It's a bad experience on both sides which is what I'm trying to help people understand.

[scooty199]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

This quote was sprinkled around throughout my high school robotics team. I thought I heard the last of it when I graduated, but I guess not. I really hate this statement. FIRST's mission might be to inspire, but we're all participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition. Competitions have winners and losers, and to say it's not about winning when FIRST gave us a competition is cheapening the experience and can also be derogatory for those that aim to win.

I get it, FIRST's goal is to inspire, but the competition is one of those vehicles to inspire. Building a winning robot is inspirational; watching a winning robot is inspirational; watching the teams on einstein is inspirational. Sure, we can say that teams that don't make elims at their regionals or district events can still have inspired students, I was one of those students, but I'd argue that students who work towards winning and are on winning teams are more inspired than those who sit out saturday afternoon at their regional or district competitions. Saying that there's only 3 winners at a regional doesn't mean anything. There's 30 teams in Baseball, but only one wins the world series. If it's not about winning, why don't we give every team a blue banner, and an automatic bid to Championships? Because that's not inspiring, and we all know it. No one would want to pay $5000 a year, plus additional event registration, to go to a "fair" where everyone wins everything and your performance on the field doesn't matter.

Everyone has played this game now. GDC has designed games where watching the robots perform was inspirational. GDC has also designed games that made no logical sense (I'm looking at you, Lunacy) and were dull, boring, and hardly inspiring. If FIRST's goal is inspiration, they need to make games that encourage inspiration. Calling out FIRST and the GDC for coming up with a game this hard to officiate and with so many gray areas in the manual isn't un-GP. I think throwing honest criticism and recommendations for improving team's experience is actually very gracious and very professional. As "Robotics Memes" said, we can't sugarcoat the problems of this game and call any criticisms un-GP. Granted, teams and students have had outbursts, but we all try our best to post rationally, and berate those who post while emotionally charged. Yes, there are valid criticisms with this game. Yes, sometimes it gets so bad we start beating a dead horse, but I think everyone just wants to see FIRST acknowledge our opinions and issues with the game and use that as constructive criticism to improve future games.

I never thought I'd have flashbacks to my memories of high school at this age, but reading this thread instantly reminded me of my senior year, when I was arguing to build a kitbot on steroids so we could have a competitive drivetrain, but I was told by the other leaders "FIRST isn't a sport, it's not about winning. It's about being inspired". We don't pay $5000 and put some nuts and bolts together haphazardly just to say "we're inspired". If that was the case, we could save money and enter a Science Olympiad tournament (no offense to SO) or BEST robotics. We pay this money because we want to compete with other robots in the region, we want to foster a culture idolizing STEM, and we want to buy into a system that will guide us towards that goal, and to do that, FIRST gave us a competition, a sport, to play in to win.

This matches my sentiments entirely.

I remember hearing my freshman year when I did FTC that FIRST was the "sport for the mind". It certainly has many aspects of a sport. There's practice, there's dedication, it passes my smell test.

This may sound awful to hear, but I'm getting tired of having GP thrown at any sort of criticism or complaint on here. Nothing is exempt from criticism, not FIRST, not the GDC, not Aerial Assist, or any individual or team. In some cases and probably many cases some criticism is justified.

We're also human, you can't expect people in a sport (and I'll continue to call FRC a sport) to not be emotional at some point. That means we have reactions to calls and things we think are wrong. That doesn't excuse actions, but we can't just villify people for feeling strongly about something. That's unnatural.

I'll agree it's Un-GP to say, the "refs suck" or these people are idiots, etc. And while they are volunteers, the honest truth is sometimes refs just might not be that good. Plain and simple.


And now my large point on "it's not about winning" or this "isn't about the robot" or "this isn't about competition".

Yes typically 3 teams win a regional. A small amount of teams of a regional anywhere from 30-60+ teams win. Yes the point is to have fun and on some higher level realize the culture-changing ability of STEM, but at the end of the day this is a COMPETITION. We COMPETE. Teams win, teams lose. I'll be darned if any team I mention in the future or the teams I was on in the past came with this attitude "oh let's just play". NO. We play to have fun, but you best believe we play the game to win.

Winning isn't everything, but let's not act like it doesn't matter. Winning matters, it's just valued differently according to each individual.

As Herm Edwards in the NFL once said, "You play to Win The Game!"

This non-sense of just succumbing to the idea that you don't stand a chance of winning doesn't sit well with me. If you're not trying to do your best in FIRST, you're selling yourself short period.

Gracious professionalism is a great thing, but it's not all of FIRST, neither is winning, and neither is inspiration, and none of them should be used to sugarcoat reality, like the reality of how poorly implemented this game is and how ridiculous some calls and gameplay can be at times.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

It's a bad experience on both sides which is what I'm trying to help people understand.

That's certainly an understatement. I think everyone understands that many factors have lead to this game becoming difficult to both score and adjudicate. Both teams and volunteers have suffered immensely because of it. However it's imperative that FIRST as an organization and a community learn from the plethora of mistakes made in recent history, so as not to repeat them.

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

I also ask that any complaints to specific situations or events remain in the other threads

I wasn't intending to bring up any specific events, but since you brought up SVR, I'm more than happy to discuss it (or any of the other incidents to which I alluded to) with you outside of this thread if you'd prefer it.*

People have every right to be upset and I'm certainly more sympathetic to the kids who were robbed of the experiences they deserved, than the people who took it from them. The students and teams acted with Gracious Professionalism in nearly all the cases I am aware of. I don't know if I can say the same of those responsible for the decisions, whomever they may be.

*Feel free to PM me.

[J-Blondie]

I brought up SVR because it seems to be what everyone is the most angry about. And like I have said a bunch now, winning is great. It matters in a lot of ways as I highlighted in my original post. But winning or losing out doesn't need to turn you into an ugly vengeful person either. I'm going to stop replying at this point because I'm just repeating myself and I seem to be misunderstood about a lot of what I'm trying to say. That or most people just don't want to hear it.

Final words: Just be nice to each other, have compassion and deal with problems that may or may not arise. Mistakes happen, learn from them. Terrible things happen and hurt EVERYONE INVOLVED. Just think before you post and remember what you are representing when you do post.

[David8696]

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

I brought up SVR because it seems to be what everyone is the most angry about. And like I have said a bunch now, winning is great. It matters in a lot of ways as I highlighted in my original post. But winning or losing out doesn't need to turn you into an ugly vengeful person either. I'm going to stop replying at this point because I'm just repeating myself and I seem to be misunderstood about a lot of what I'm trying to say. That or most people just don't want to hear it.

Final words: Just be nice to each other, have compassion and deal with problems that may or may not arise. Mistakes happen, learn from them. Terrible things happen and hurt EVERYONE INVOLVED. Just think before you post and remember what you are representing when you do post.

I just want to note the fact that the issue at SVR wasn't even about winning. It was about a team being forced to sit out their final match of the season due to an unreasonable decision by a referee. And while I agree that winning is not the only reason to participate in FRC, I would make the argument that having the opportunity to play is. The reason we have a robotics competition is for robots to compete. And when a team is unjustly deprived of that opportunity, I consider it an outrage, and I think it would be more graciously professional not to express a certain measure of dissatisfaction in sympathy for a team who was deprived of the opportunity to compete in their last match of the year.

[Seth Mallory]

Janelle

I wish I could say things as well as you. You are 100% correct.

[BrendanB]

I think its really hard for any of us to weigh in on individual's reactions to some of the events that have happened this season because its easy for us to preach about GP over our keyboards but its another thing to walk it out. For any team to stand through some of the events (SVR, Orlando, San Diego, etc) and react in a positive manner is an extremely hard pill to swallow. Being told you have to sit out of your last chance match to move on all because of a simple mistake in the heat of the moment is hard to justify. Or being told that even though you followed the paths to be reinspected for eliminations that the inspectors didn't give you a thorough enough reinspection means you are DQed instantly from two matches you just won and it ended a season for a team.

These are tough items for teams to swallow. You put all of your heart, effort, and time into the season only for it to end without having a fair shot. I feel especially for the seniors on the teams who lost their last chance to move on to the Championship. I hope your experience in FIRST isn't marked by the events but instead of the victories on and off the field.

While I know the topic of this thread is a good reminder to remain professional in the toughest of situations keep in mind you won't know how you will react to a situation like this until you experience it. Please don't judge those who unfortunately had to go through some extremely sad events. That's not being very compassionate to those who did.