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

[dlavery]

”It's part rock concert, part basketball, part auto race (the pits), part awards night at the Oscars.”
- John Abele, FIRST Chairman, commenting in the FIRST Annual Report on the environment at a FIRST competition

So it seems that we are being presented with two options as audience members.

We can sit quietly and stoically, politely patting our right fingertips into the palm of our left hands like members of the royal family applauding the performance of the libretto introduction to of Puccini's La Bohéme at The Albert Hall. Emotion and excitement can be as scarce as free thought at a Lyndon La Rouche rally.

Or we can crank up the volume and let the world know that we are nerds with a pulse! When a team does well, they can be shown appreciation for their performance by a crowd that makes their presence known. Energy and enthustiasm can be so blatantly obvious that people serenely driving past Atlanta - by way of St. Louis - will stop their cars and ask “what is all the excitement about?” We can be louder than an accelerating Concorde (just not quite as pretty), and let the world know that we are having a good time!

I want to get so excited that we make more noise than a Metallica concert, get more pumped up than any NCAA final four crowd, generate more energy than the entire starting field at the Indy 500, and show more glitz and style than any silly Hollywood tour down the red carpet. The bleachers at a FIRST competition should be full of people blasting energy out of every pore of their bodies.

Given a choice, I will hang with the headbangers any day of the week.

-dave