When The Magic Works

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by MysterE

Is there a weight that comes with winning? One that requires of us to establish new boundaries and pursue further exploits?
Is it ok to feel like while we may deserve what we’ve won, we don’t really deserve it?

Emphasis mine. I think that's the perfect summation of the feeling after the excitement of winning something has died down.

I'll only work on a personal note for a moment here: My team nominated me for WFFA this year, and to my surprise I won.

I spend probably 40+ hours a week working with my team during the season (and maybe a little less during the 'off-season'), and I absolutely understand that I have done an amount of work with our students that merits some sort of recognition. I was honored to win, and proud of the time I've put into this team. I cried my eyes out - because this is the biggest, most intense 'thank you' I could ever have asked for from the MidKnight Inventors. It means the world to me.

That said, I will never, ever feel like I do enough for them to deserve recognition on the team's behalf, instead of showcasing the fantastic students that have come through the program we've built. I don't deserve this, our kids do. They're the ones that are doing amazing things - I'm just the scaffolding for what they have created.

This is still something new to me, and I'm, quite honestly, struggling with it. I feel as though there's even more pressure now to live up to what the award means. I have to give more, I have to do more, I have to make sure our kids have the best possible opportunities. Anything less would be a disservice to the students who nominated me.

Originally Posted by MysterE

My post, then, is for those with whom the magic has been kind. To the victor goes the spoils – but it also goes the responsibility of honesty for those that are still looking up and wondering how far up that mountain there is yet to go.

To you that win, I have a few questions: How has winning changed you? What has it turned you into? And most importantly; Are you happy with who you have become?

Since I just rambled all to hell, even though I promised not to, I'll try to TL;DR the journey of our team. We're not a powerhouse by any means, but we've had successes in our past that I think we've learned well from.

2006-2008: No money, no mentors, no sponsors, no school support - a few kids and a dream. We were terrible. The season burned us out, so we never did anything else besides build a robot. It was not the FIRST program as it should be done.

2009: Our first real sponsor. Mentoring expertise. Our very first blue banner.

From that point forward, we had the school's support. We knew we had the partnerships in place to make something amazing happen. We buckled down and got serious about the process, our outreach, and our general approach to all things FIRST.

Did we win all the time from that point forward? Not at all. 2010, definitely not. 2011, we won a regional. 2012, our adoption by the school as a co-curricular activity meant we had to make some serious changes to the team's structure - and lose some of the progress we made. It's been a slow climb back up since then. We're kinda-almost-not-really-there, but we're getting there.

When the magic works, it's a really nice reinforcement that you have the magic. From that point on, it should be a driving force to continue making the magic work.

More importantly; blue banners are nice, but I'm intensely happy with our constant improvement and program growth, even if it doesn't win us an event. (I won't directly quote, because I don't want to cross social media platforms, but Chris from 2791 had a fantastic status about this as well. I hope he'll choose to share some of his thoughts on Chief.) No matter what our team comes home with, each year we graduate a class of students that just get better and better. That's the real prize for us.

What have we become? A more cohesive team, with lofty goals and a focus on making each other the best we can be.
Are we happy with it? We're over the moon.