Everyone's A Winner?

[Tyler_Kaplan]

Originally Posted by NoahB4536

This last weekend my team competed at the Minnesota 10K lakes regional. As per usual there were lots of speakers but it seemed to me like this year they talked a lot about how everyone was a winner by just showing up to the event. Now I am not bashing the speakers, I just wanted to address an issue that has come up in other sports, which is that if competitors at an event are told that everyone is a winner it can take away some of the joy of winning and interfere with the competition aspect of coopertition. Calling everyone a winner can also make it tough for people to deal with losing, although that is mostly with younger kids. I was in the pits for some of the regional so I did not get to watch every speaker and therefore cannot attest to the extent to which this was occurring but I do believe that it is important for the FRC to not give into the concept of everyone being a winner. There are three winning teams in a regional and although that does not necessarily mean that the other teams are "losers" it does mean that the other teams can be motivated to learn and improve in their pursuit of excellence.

I am going to respectfully disagree with saying that there are three winners at a competition. FIRST is about far more than the outcome of the finals. For example, I would consider the winners of the Chairman's award huge winners, same with awards like engineering inspiration and rookie all star. Being a winner in FIRST is not black and white. It's about what you as an individual and a team get out of the experience. As a mentor, I look at it as what we can do to serve our community, and how to give students tools to succeed in their lives.

[NoahB4536]

Originally Posted by Tyler_Kaplan

I am going to respectfully disagree with saying that there are three winners at a competition. FIRST is about far more than the outcome of the finals. For example, I would consider the winners of the Chairman's award huge winners, same with awards like engineering inspiration and rookie all star. Being a winner in FIRST is not black and white. It's about what you as an individual and a team get out of the experience. As a mentor, I look at it as what we can do to serve our community, and how to give students tools to succeed in their lives.

Your right that more than three teams could be considered winners but I was mostly referring to the winners of the finals. I also agree that first is about giving people the tools they need for the future and to me one of the tools people need for this world we live in, with a global economy and global competition in the job market, is understanding winning and losing and being able to learn from mistakes. I definitely think that the winners of awards are winners and having fun and getting valuable skills are important however my worry is that we might see those awards become less valued because of the mentality that everyone is a winner. I see from the other posts that most people think that if you learn you are a winner and because the FRC is a program for learning it would make sense that gained knowledge could be (and probably should be) considered a victory, I just don't want first to turn into my elementary school baseball team where if you showed up you got a medal.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by NoahB4536

I just don't want first to turn into my elementary school baseball team where if you showed up you got a medal.

FIRST used to give out bronze medals to every team who competed. These were replaced with pins provided in the KoP several years ago, presumably as a cost cutting measure.

[MaGiC_PiKaChU]

The way FIRST works, not all the best robots win their regional. In fact, most of the time, the captain and 1st pick of the finalist alliance have better robots than the 2nd pick of the winning alliance. The winners are not necessarily the best, and the best don't always win. This is how life works too, get used to it.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

FIRST used to give out bronze medals to every team who competed. These were replaced with pins provided in the KoP several years ago, presumably as a cost cutting measure.

I miss those metals. When you got them you knew what it was,"a reminder of the hard work it took to get you there." That's what is meant by being a "winner" at a FIRST event.

Don't get me started on that "2nd place is the first loser" crap.

[Jcarbon]

This thread is pretty relevant to me - this weekend my team was a finalist (one goal away from winning!) and Engineering Inspiration winner. Overall, I think we agreed that even though we were disappointed about not winning, we were very proud of making it to finals, especially considering the turnaround we made from being in dead last on Friday. Even though we had hoped to win a Chairman's Award, we were very proud of the EI, and appreciated the team that did win (go 3641!). So I guess my point is that whether you feel like you won depends on the team and your circumstances, and you can feel both proud of your accomplishments while also recognizing your shortcomings.