Proposal for the 2 Championship format

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dodar

I would hope the kids on the team would understand the 2-League/Championship System. If in the first year they dont gather the needed points to qualify for Premier, then next year they shouldnt be angry when they do win and qualify for the Challenger Championship and not Premier. If they get angry and upset, then that is on the team leadership for not having that well known.

I'm going to disagree with your last statement. Really simply, no matter how much we as leaders explain the system, they're still going to be upset. You should have heard my team trying to figure out getting into CMP after L.A., when we hadn't qualified. Let's just say that was not an easy discussion set on anybody--and we had the whole "this is what stuff has said since back before build" to refer to, among other things. I've been on the receiving end of a couple of those "you're not advancing because..." discussions--it doesn't often sit well with the kids for a few days at the least.

And it's still not on team leadership for not having it well known. It's on HQ for using a lousy system that traps them into this. After what they heard at the townhall, I think they'd be very reluctant to try something like this without asking some folks, and I'm pretty sure that there's enough folks willing to speak up and tell 'em it's a lousy idea that it'd be a non-starter. Not sure if we're dealing with a vocal minority or a silent majority on that, though.

This is basic human emotion, 101 level: The "Life isn't Fair"/"Why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?" discussion. It's quite possible to understand something rationally--and emotionally, it just makes absolutely no sense. So, for the first three or four years, AT LEAST, someone (read: whoever was responsible for the "split by levels", ideally) has to tell the kids that they can't go to the top-level championship even though they won everything because they are only rated at the second-tier level based on last year's results--which, by the way, have absolutely nothing to do with this year's results.

The reason I linked Gary's earlier post was this: this works well in the sports leagues because it's the entire season, including championships, and you never play teams in another tier. If you try to do it where you're playing against--and maybe even beating--teams in the other tier, you get some skewed results and lousy reactions/emotions running high. So you either split the whole durn competition, which we've already pointed out got shot down years ago when it would have been a lot easier, or you don't try any sort of relegation.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily mind doing a split along competitive lines, mind you. I just think that current year's data ought to be used, because the exact relationship between any two years in FRC is approximately zero. They just happen to use the same general vehicle and a certain "core" set of rules just happens to stay largely the same year to year--but that's not always the case. (Imagine deciding who went to the 2015 CMP based on the 2014 season...) So if I ruled FRC, I'd see how I could leverage the district point system to my advantage, maybe add a secondary set of "Inspiration" points (tacked to some awards, or awarded by judges for certain actions/impacts, or as a bonus for how long since you've been to CMP) to sort of help separate everybody by whatever, and bias one championship slightly towards "inspiration" and one slightly towards "competition". Of course, I don't rule FRC, so this is all hypothetical.