What do you feel about the growth of FIRST?

[Chris Hibner]

I really like Dean's vision of every high school having a FIRST team. That would be great. However, it's never going to happen as long as corporations are footing the bill. Corporations are more concerned about turning a profit than helping the youth of America.

However, there just so happens to be one organization that already exists whose sole purpose is to help the youth of America: the school system.

The only chance that FIRST ever has of getting a team in each school is to get the schools to sponsor the teams. I played hockey growing up and I know that the budget for a high school hockey team is about $25,000 to $30,000 per year (it varies by a number of factors, but this is typical). If high schools foot such a large bill for a sports team, why not for a competitive team related to math and science? (Actually, they don't do it now since the demand isn't there yet, but that's where TV exposure and such comes in - but that's another topic.)

Anyway, this is not to say that the corporations shouldn't be involved. It would still be a great idea to have corporate partners, but relying on a corporation for the survival of your team is pretty risky business - especially when the economy goes south.

-Chris