"We Are the Champions" and GP?

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by aaeamdar

I would agree that some of the songs played at FIRST events have questionable lyrics/themes, and these songs are, again, deserving of consideration. However, this doesn't mean that songs that go against basic FIRST principles are OK just because we have other inappropriate songs.

You're confusing political correctness with gracious professionalism. I'm not seeking to make anything more politically correct. In fact, if we are willing to acknowledge what the song says, that winning is all that's important, and we don't have time for losers, then the song is exactly what we should be playing at the end of competitions. However, if FIRST is about more than winning and losing, as everyone keeps telling me it is, then we should take a longer look at this song.

And, by the way, I seem to have forgotten. What's the highest honor that a team can win at a regional? Can anyone remind me? And what's the special song played when you win that?

Maybe this thread can be redirected towards finding the "right" songs to celebrate the competition winners AND Chairman's winners. It's probably not as easy to do this as you might think...

[StephLee]

I am not presenting a personal opinion on this topic because I can see where both sides are coming from, but I'd like to add something: I have been on the drive team of a finalist team twice in the last two seasons, including BoB yesterday, and on a winning team once. I recall this song being played at all three events. I have to admit, the first time it happened it was a bit of a rub, because the finals were so hard-fought, but if anything it made me work that much harder at our next regional. Hearing it played yesterday, it didn't bother me in the slightest, because the winning alliance worked so hard to get there.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by aaeamdar

get me some of what you're smoking.

I don't think that phrase ideally represents FIRST.

[Tim Delles]

A song is what the person who is listening to makes it.

We could ask a million people the interpretation of a song and we could get back thousands of different answers? why? because people see things differently. Just because you hear this song one way doesn't mean everyone else hears it the same way.

Originally Posted by We Are The Champions

I've paid my dues, time after time
I've done my sentence, but committed no crime
And bad mistakes, I've made a few
I've had my share of sand, kicked in my face
But I've come through

And I need to go on and on and on and on
We are the champions, my friend
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions, We are the champions
No time for losers 'cos we are the champions of the world

I've taken my bows, and my curtain calls
You've bought me fame and fortune
And everything that goes with it... I thank you all
But it's been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And I ain't gonna lose

And I need to go on and on and on and on
We are the champions, my friend
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions, We are the champions
No time for losers 'cos we are the champions of the world

We are the champions, my friend
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions, We are the champions
No time for losers, 'cos we are the champions

This is the entirity of the lyrics. If we are going to start bashing this song because it isn't Graciously Professional, we should look at it all not just part of it.

I've paid my dues, time after time
I've done my sentence, but committed no crime
And bad mistakes, I've made a few
I've had my share of sand, kicked in my face
But I've come through

So lets see. This is just what I see in the lyrics but it is about someone / or a team that has waited and waited, being knocked off from winning but have finally won. They have put there time into everything from strategizing, building the robot, programming, and driver training.

Also could be shown in the first community as: how some teams are looked down on by there school (particularly other students who think they are nerds or geeks that no one likes.) Sometimes it i snice to come through and be a winning team in that school, especially if they don't have anything else to celebrate

And I need to go on and on and on and on
We are the champions, my friend
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions, We are the champions
No time for losers 'cos we are the champions of the world

We could mean the entire FIRST community, the community that the teams come from, and friends and family who have helped them to where they are.

The losers could be those that didn't think they (the team of FIRST) could succeed

If you keep breaking this down there are many things that this song can mean.

Honestly do you think that this song is bad to play???

Try to find a song that is better to be played for the Regional Winners... But i doubt that any song could compare to We Are The Champions for a FIRST Event.

[xzvrw2]

This song demeans the finalist team, we should remove it from every sporting event everywere. The red alliance is bad too, red makes people feel bad, we should get rid of that, maybe blue and purple teams. Losing also demeans the losing team, so we should take away the scoring. Well then one robot or team in general may perform better then one of the other teams, we should take out the game. And wait, one of the robots may look better then the other teams, we should take away the paint and the colors and stuff from robots and other sporting teams. Man sports are only about one thing, the winner, that demeans the losing teams. Man we should get rid of them all. Man i dont know about these sports. I feel demeaned just thinking about their demeaningness.




p.s. i think the song is fine, there are many ways you can look at losers and champions, one is that no one in FIRST is a loser, so therefore that line does not refer to any one in the compititon. Another way you can look at it is the same way that JaneYoung said it. That you have to put losing out of your mind. You could also look at it the way Karthik said, look at it for inspiration. For you to look at something to work harder to get, that next goal, that next step.

And as for finding a new song to fit in its place, i have found a great one:
We Are the Champions by Queen.

my $0.01

Steve

[Richard Wallace]

Jane's view is spot on, as it has been so often before.

I believe a poll of those who win Chairman's Awards, Woodie Flowers Awards, and Outstanding Volunteer Awards would reveal that all those folks LOVE to cheer for the winners at the end of eliminations.

The song in question here has been a traditional way to celebrate winners since my generation was in high school. When a better song comes along I hope FIRST will start using it, but until then the anthem that Queen gave us thirty years ago still seems to be working fine.

[Andy Grady]

There have been alot of traditions that have died over the 13 years I have been doing FIRST.

I, for one, would say that there are some traditions that are better left untouched, even by the promotion of Gracious Professionalism. We Are The Champions is one of them.

Sometimes, all those old traditions can be important to us "old timers" out there.

[Deacon Blues]

It is one line you can barely hear over the applause. It's an American sports tradition. No one actually gets offended. Calm down. Yes, there is a contradiction, but honestly, everyone gets the tradition of it and no teams are going over to the folks who didn't win and berating them because of a Queen song. FIRST has always enforced a wonderful attitude of gracious professionalism, and if someone forgoes this attitude because Freddie Mercury made one line of a now ceremonial song slightly against our policy, our concern should be more about realizing we're not talking up the policy more.

[AdamHeard]

Sure you can say were all winners in FIRST, but the "winning" you are referring to happens long before the end of eliminations. That is knowledge and appreciation for engeering gained by the students during the build.

When it comes to the eliminations, it's a little bit different. When you are out on the field you should expect your opponents to;
a) Do everything thing they can to win.
b) Do a) with good sportsmanship and without cheating.

Since that is the case, celebrating the winner is not that big of a deal. It really doesn't put down the losers. And if the losing team is offended by the song, they really need some thicker skin 'cause the real world is not that nice.

It seems to me that sometimes people get so wrapped up in GP, that they forget there is a competition going on. In a competition one team wins, and the other loses; Just the way it is. Now, GP is still important in FIRST, but GP is not FIRST in entirety.

[Beth Sweet]

Not that it was requested, but here's my 2 cents (always happy to chime in).

To inspire others to be the best, you have to exalt the best. That means to show that this is the goal. This is the best engineering. The ceremony, the medals, the lights, and yes, the superhero theme music. Yes, this song has a few... questionable lyrics, but honestly what do people remember of this song? (watch the singing bee, no one actually knows all of the words to songs) "Weeeee are the champiooooons, my friends", and "No time for looooooosin cuz weeeeee are the chammmmpionnnnnns... buh buh buh... of the worrrrrrld". That's pretty much what people know, or at least when I hear people chiming in.

So personally, I don't have a problem with it. Yes, FIRST is about GP, but GP isn't being as quiet as a church mouse and hiding behind a shield. GP is about interacting in a way that is functional, helpful, and universally beneficial. One line in a song, to me, does not break that mold. It helps to build the aura of excellence, and that is the goal of the whole "winners ceremony" section of awards.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

So personally, I don't have a problem with it. Yes, FIRST is about GP, but GP isn't being as quiet as a church mouse and hiding behind a shield. GP is about interacting in a way that is functional, helpful, and universally beneficial. One line in a song, to me, does not break that mold. It helps to build the aura of excellence, and that is the goal of the whole "winners ceremony" section of awards.

Great point.... You can only get so many kids really hooked with the technical aspects alone.... It takes that admiration and appreciation of the elite teams to get some kids motivated, and they realize, they love this stuff (Now maybe, just maybe that happened to me after watching Newton in '05 from the sidelines).

[Tom Bottiglieri]

I've been thinking about this topic for a while, and I think it's kind of funny that this thread popped up today.

One of the main problems I have with FIRST is the status quo of mediocrity. Well prepared and practiced teams are not rewarded enough for their efforts, IMHO. I think there is a problem when students brag about how they built a robot using a hacksaw, hand drill, and pair of hedge clippers, and this practice becomes perfectly acceptable. It seems that alot of the people who compete in FIRST want to escape the burden of competition. Yes, it is not a conventional sport. And yes, we can strive to improve the spirit of the competition by encouraging sportsmanship, but it is still a competition. In any competition, there are always losers. If you cannot handle losing, don't compete. It's that simple.

Just another note.. It seems that the people complaining about "the bad spirit of a song" that is usually played in celebration would probably never have a problem with it if they were on the other side.

[Deacon Blues]

Also, just to throw something else in here, most of the losers don't even care.

For example, yesterday, 2199 has a horrible, horrible showing at BoB. Like 0-6-1 if not worse. Our arm had to be taped up to even be of use as blocker.

But the whole drive home and for another couple of hours sitting in our future chief engineer's basement, we were still talking about how awesome the day was and what other teams did right. There was of course talk about how we screwed up, but all of it was just seeing what we could do right next time. Honestly, we didn't much care we lost so much as it would have been cool if we had won. And we're a rookie team. Experience teams and players will already be used to this sort of thing.

We lost, badly, but it doesn't matter. No one cared about We Are The Champions, because it's tradition and anyone who has grown up in this culture knows it. It's celebratory for the winners, and the losers know it's directly aimed to offend them. It's tradition and that's all it is.

[Koko Ed]

I find the actual on field competition part of FIRST to be it's least Gp part of it. It can be pretty ruthless at times, especially with the upper eschelon teams who everyone wishes to emulate. You don't always make it to the top by sugarcoating everything you do. Sometimes you have to give some "tough love" to get your point across.
If the competiton was 100% about GP then it wouldn't allow teams to turn down alliance invitations from anyone. Is there any worse feeling than having a team tell you basically that you are not good enough for them? But that is part of the landscape as well and thank God for the 3 team allaince structure that allows teams that would usually not be in a position to get on the podium to actually make it there.
That alliance strucure is FIRST's masterstroke. It makes it unique in the sports world and allows GP to show through on the field as much as it does. I don't think you'd see anywhere near as much if it was everyone for themselves.
I personally never gave the song a second thought really. I get more annoyed about a competiton that is so much about innovation recycling the same stupid songs in the playlist 20 times at an event.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

OK, here comes my two cents...As with so many things these days, we tend to look at the minutia instead of the big picture. If you started this thread by asking "does anyone know the lyrics for "We Are the Champions"? Your responses would be "we are the Champions, la la la, do do do, We are the Champions of the World!" After all of the years I have been to competitions, (that's 40-50 events) all this song represents to me is that the final teams are on stage to be recognized. Stand Up and cheer! There is no hidden meaning, no subliminal message, just a popular song with recognizable lyrics to trigger a response and signal the next scene in the script. So that you don't forget in the future, we are not the "the glass is half empty" group.
Ed I have to disagree with you about GP on the field. This is a competition to highlight design, construction and strategy. To go on the field and not put forth your best effort every match is a failure to act in a gracious manner. It will not improve robot design or inspire students to do better. When Wildstang helps a team we expect that team not to hold back. We tell them that we expect them to use their repaired robot to the fullest. Anything less does not improve either team or the organization as a whole. If we didn't bring this competitive spirit to the field we would still be running with wired robots on a table top.
OK so that's more than two cents worth but I am crabby after 6 hours between shifts.