[YMTC]: Red Card at Beantown Blitz 2008

[EricH]

Originally Posted by aepstein

In one of the final matches at this year's Beantown Blitz, Team 40 was given a yellow card for egregious robot behavior. They then amended the referee's call and gave them a 2nd yellow card for harassing a referee, and a red card disqualifying them.

Can anyone clarify the offending behaviors that occurred?

Also, at what point does gracious professionalism turn into cut throat competition?

I have no comment on the yellow cards, as I wasn't there or watching, but the red would not have had any offending behavior--Second yellow card=red card.

[edit]Jacob, if the ref gives a red card as a joke, and doesn't label it as one, then I think the ref needs to do some hard thinking about his sense of humor. "Boy who cried wolf" and all that.[/edit]

As for the other question... I think that happens when you remove "Gracious". Professionalism is about getting the job done (within the rules, of course), regardless of what happens along the way. Or rather, it can be seen that way. Now, when the "job" is inspiring (the "I" in FIRST), cutthroat competition probably won't result. But when the "job" is winning, or winning is seen as "the way to inspire", then you can expect to have a fierce battle if you are "in the way".

The point at which GP turns into cutthroat competition is the point at which we forget what GP is and what the real job is.