Apologizing for Blowout Match

Other Chit-Chat
#21

Exactly. In addition, you don’t keep shooting three-pointers.
It is the same across most team-based sports. When you get up by an insurmountable lead, you pull the starters. This has a lot of benefits for your team anyway. 1) The “2nd string/line” gets experience in the game. Who knows when they will be needed down the road. Granted, this is not a pressure situation, but it is game-day experience. 2) You protect your starters from injury.

Differences from FIRST: 1) As stated earlier, FIRST is a 2-minute game while all these sports are 45+ minute games. 2) The scoring in FIRST can happen very fast (especially this year with the super cells). 3) As stated, with possible penalties, it is hard to know where you stand.

As to G-14: I personally am glad that they add the stipulation about penalties being applied after checking for score more than double. I have some concerns about the rule, but in the end, it is what we have and we have to live by them. I will hold judgment on it until I see how applicable it really is during the competition.

#22

Jane, I agree on your first point, teams can only play to their best when they are pushed. Otherwise they are playing at whatever level they feel comfortable. A lot of people would never move forward if they weren’t pushed.

While FIRST is different than basketball the concept is the same. Both are team sports where we compete to win. In my opinion the major difference is that in basketball you can choose your team, FIRST doesn’t give us that benefit for most of the competition. Does that mean we should take it easy on people? NO. Ive said countless times that teams need to compete as if it were the last match they will ever play. Ive had people go easy on me in various games and competitions. I was offended. I was hurt. Frankly, the fact that the winning team stopped at 100 is more offensive in my opinion than the fact that they dominated the game.

How does this apply to FIRST? I don’t care who you are, if you are 1114 or if you are a team who barely made a robot if you do not play your hardest against me I will think less of you.

How do I feel about the apology? I think that is offensive to the team that lost. What the district is saying is, “We are sorry we didn’t take it easy on you because you are pathetic and we are so much better than you.” I applaud the coach for standing up and treating these kids as actual competitors instead of treating the game like a practice match.

DISCLAIMER: I do not approve of leveling the playing field or G14 in any way shape of form.

#23

Regarding FIRST, I would prefer to see teams and alliances play their smartest. That would include respecting, understanding, and applying the rules.

Implied rules such as going to the b game in basketball so there isn’t a blow-out is what creates problems and bad will. To me, this is what this thread is about regarding that basketball game.

#24

The smartest thing that coach could have done was keep his mouth shut.
When a story like this is getting national attention the last thing you do is contradict your boss and show them up in the press. The results are always predictable.

#25

The real <fault/crime/sad thing>* is whomever set up the match, IF they knew the relative level of skills of each team.

Kind of like the NY Giants playing a junior High School team - think there’d be any fun for anyone? But, such a margin of victory is no reason to be ashamed. If there is to be a forfeit, it should be before the game has ended.

*Can’t think of a good word for that…

.

#26

According to this letter from the (now fired) coach off of the teams web site [http://www.flightbasketball.com/100-0-Texas-Game-Response-From-Coach.html] He stopped the “Full court press” after three minutes into the game after they already scored 25 points, and also there were only 4 3-point shots in the entire game, 3 in the first quarter, and 1 in the third.

Take a look at the story from another perspective. I think that what he did was right. You should not forfeit the game if you have a blowout. You should be respectful to the other team and make sure you let them know that they played hard too and tried their best.

Please, take a look at the letter, it really paints a different picture than what the media had been painting.

#27

The FRC competitions are a little different:

During the qualifying matches you should consider that part of your ranking will come from the losing alliances score. If you are clearly winning it will help your alliance teams if you do back off and allow the opponents to accumulate some points. We are playing a multi-game strategy here.

During the final matches you should be playing as hard as possible even if this means that the opponents have no score. The losing score doesn’t count toward moving to the next level.

GP is realizing that when each individual game is over we should all be helping each other to achieve the best results we can, even if that means helping the next match opponent get their robot back on the field.

Opinion on the original topic: I don’t want my opponent to throw the match. I want to keep getting better until I can score against the tough teams. How will you know where the bar is if it’s always getting lowered for you?

#28

After the fiasco that the orignal story ended up becoming I prefer this story a whole lot more.

#29

It’s way less controversial, and definitely more meaningful. Thanks for contributing that to the thread (yes, there are lots of good people in the world.) (:

#30

A much better display of sportsmanship. They may not call it GP, but they get it.

#31

FIRST Robotics Competition.

While the principle of GP plays a huge part in FIRST, at the end of the day this is still a competition. I personally find dishonor in not trying your hardest to win the game while following the rules and being a decent person.

I used to play Lacrosse, and once upon a time we played a team that was obviously not as good as we were. We ran the score up into the 30-0 range. It got so bad that myself and our other goalies were scoring goals.

Do I feel bad? Not one bit. Everyone out there was a sportsman, in fact I had a friend on the other team. When I asked him about it he told me “I’d rather have my butt handed to me, then a win I did not earn.”

Kinda sums it up for me.

#32

Another High School sports GP story is in the headlines today:

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=914609

Kind of refreshing to know that in the stereotypical world of sports, there exists some glint of humanity & GP among the highly competitive nature.

#33

Koko Ed beat you to it.:stuck_out_tongue:

#34

Oops!
I didn’t expect to see it posted on here yesterday since I just saw the headline today. HA!

Oh wells. It’s a story that is worth repeating many times over none-the-less. :slight_smile:

#35

I agree, this is a topic I wouldnt object so strongly to having duplicate posts. These things need to be showcased.

#36