Cheering, standing ovations, and required team actions during matches and awards

[Andy Baker]

In the 2005 Lessons Learned: the negative thread, a debate came forth about teams who stand up and cheer. Issues were raised by people who said that they don't like seeing people "required" to cheer for other teams. Other people said that it was not courtious to contine to stand and block the veiws of people behind them. There are a couple of facets to this debate, and I wanted to start a new thread to put them in here.

Since our team was singled out and it was said that we "required" our team to stand up and cheer, I will state our position on this.

Before our initial regional this year, we talked about cheering for other teams during the awards ceremony. I said something like "we will stand up and cheer for those teams, because we would appreciate it if they stood up for us". I didn't yell at them about this. It is simply something that we do. Follow us around for a year or two, this is something that defines what TechnoKats are. I'll try to explain more in the next paragraphs.

We've been doing this FIRST thing for 14 years. We've had spirited teams, competitive teams, non-competitive teams, and "sportsmanship teams". Over the past 5-6 years, we really have not been a spirited team. We are the ones who just sit in the stands, sometimes standing up to cheer when our team is on the field. We grumble when the team in front of us is very loud, but we also realize that we can move if we don't like it. Heck, we have NEVER won a spirit award in those 14 years.

However, during the awards, we have been standing up to cheer our fellow FIRST teams on since we had a bad attitude at a regional in 1999. I remember it vividly... it was a defining moment for us. FIRST even made a docementary out of us and our pivotal attitude adjustment at that regional.

Here is my opinion on why we do this:
1. We have won many awards. We enjoy seeing our friends on other teams win these awards. We honestly feel that if the judges think that this team deserves this award, the least we can do is stand up for them and cheer.
2. We want to win an award too. We have pouted because we did not win a certain award. However, oddly enough, it feels better to stand up and clap for the other team who won the award we *think* we deserve. In my opinion, this is theraputic for us. I recommend trying it for other teams who think they deserve an award but believe they are snubbed.
3. Award ceremonies are long. Standing up and sitting down 6-7 times during these ceremonies keeps us from falling asleep.
4. This has become a TechnoKat tradition. Maybe this is something we should put on the backs of our shirts: "beware - this person will stand up and cheer for other teams during FIRST award ceremonies".

So... I would agree that we are guilty to requiring our team members to stand for others when they get awards. It is a gentle requirement, though. Our student was wrong when they said that we would yell at them. We don't yell at our students (well... there was that one year when 13 of our kids didn't make grades and I YELLED MY HEAD OFF!).

Sheesh... sorry about the long post. Debate as you wish.

Andy B.