New Home for Nationals

[moogleslair]

As long as sponsors keep realizing the need for this program, I see only a few more years before FIRST is big enough to be considered the same as high school basketball or football. Teams could go to a state or district tourney to qualify for their League's final. Midwest has enough teams to start their own leagues, same with New Eangland and the South. Basically do away with nats and have more maybe 40-50 regionals country wide. Then have 300 team competitions in detriot/chicago, philly/newyork, alanta/orlando, seatle/LA. It would be just like we have now as a whole, but would be multiple ones over the country.

Granted we would lose the chance to compete with our friends from other parts of the country but when does an Florida high school football team play one from Utah? I would miss the charm of the old FIRST but this way more kids can gain from the experience. I was on a team when Dean and Woody came to every regional and 30 teams was a packed house. Now 50-70 team regionals are going on and almost 4 a week. Even with the growth i still see the same learning process in the rookies as i went through. I think FIRST should keep growing even if it means a branching out away from each other.