[YMTC]: Red Card at Beantown Blitz 2008

[Morgan Gillespie]

Originally Posted by aepstein

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

This can occur any time when one party is willing to do what may not be gracious or even professional for the victory or a specific goal.

This transformation to "cut throat" can occur before, during and after a match and can be influenced / caused by many internal and external forces. External ones range from: drive teams comments and actions, drive coaches own or otherwise, actions of referees and even the crowd cheering at an UnGP action resulting in a toppling of a robot.

Many things cause it, mostly from the heat of the moment, some however are caused by a team upbringing. For some teams a loss doesn't just mean a lack of a shiny new trophee, but also placing their sponsorship in jeopardy. That doesn't justify their actions, but it should be taken into consideration.

As a member of a drive team I know what it is like when the competition turns sour, I have gotten upset about the outcome of a match, have gone into a match angry about what opposing drive teams have said or done, along with many events where I have been on the recieving as well as the giving end. I'm not proud of it, but I recognize it happens, to everyone.
There is also a major difference in playing ones best and being in it just to win.

FIRST at its base is a competition and while its intention isn't to create winners and losers, that is an end effect. At the end of the day, there is a set of teams that won but a much larger set of teams that did not.

[whytheheckme]

I know that this is totally out of place, but I'd just like to commend Jeff and his team on their awesome reffing at Beantown. It was some of the best reffing that I've seen all season. Jeff, especially, kept his cool, even when hot-heads like me approached him with questions about matches

Again, THANKS!!!!

-Jacob

[Koko Ed]

I was told by members of team 40 that they're going to name next year's robot "Red Card".
Good choice.

[MWTrek]

If the refs were serious about giving a red card out for harrassing the refs, I think it would have gone to a different team.

[KathieK]

Not being near the field, those of us in the stands thought it was serious at first. Then we realized the joke. If nothing else, it woke us all up, wondering what 40 had done to deserve a red card! (Not that anyone sleeps at a FIRST event, of course!)

[AmoryG]

The OP was not the only person on my team who took the red card joke seriously. Personally, I thought the judges couldn't resist another joke about team 40 being given the red card at the competition. It was just too good to pass by.