Standing Up During Competition...

[J Flex 188]

Just as a personal peeve of mine, there's little to no reason to hide behind the "spirit of what people define as gracious professionalism" as a catch-all for any actions that people view contribute to the competition but that others may have disagreements with. Just as you have pointed out that it could be construed as not being "GP" to politely ask a team to sit down, I could construe it as not being "GP" when I am asked by the same team to not sit in their section of seats that they have attempted to save. (Although that is an actual rule). I certainly would not take offense or question a team's "GP" if they were saving one or two seats just as a team shouldn't when they are asked to sit down by another team behind them. As sound and integral the concept of GP may be to FIRST, one runs into the danger of diluting what the message is supposed to be (not that I claim to be an expert on it, but I have a fairly good idea in mind that it wasn't designed to be applied to the practice of requesting other teams to sit down) when one uses it to hide behind issues that really are more banal than they appear to be.

On the actual topic of the thread, every regional that I have been a part of always has a section marked off in the very front so that teams may kneel and cheer or sometimes stand in close promixity at field level. This stops the issue of cheering and standing up entirely.

Originally Posted by Lea103

In the spirit of FIRST and gracious professionalism, I feel that teams telling others to sit down is rude and unappropriate. Teams should be able to stand and cheer because all have worked hard to build their robot and to even attend a competition.


-Lea

(and 648, please keep it down, you were a little loud.... hahaha )