Spirit in the Stands

FIRST General Forum
1

Now that everyone has settled down from the paper-airplane-throwing and seat-saving threads from Championships, I thought it would be as good a time as any to bring up this discussion. Note: Any opinions below are strictly mine and in no way reflect those of my team.

Let me start this off by saying that every match our robot is in, we stand up and cheer for our team. It doesn’t matter if we’re winning or losing - we still show our spirit in the stands. For the rest of the matches of the competition, we remain (mostly) seated. We also have four ‘number’ signs (a 1, a 6, a 7, and a 6), probably about two feet by four feet, which we sometimes hold, but mostly restrict their use to only when they introduce our team, and put them away once the match begins. If we do have them out for the duration of a match, we hold them in front of us and not above our heads, as to not further block the vision of those behind us.

On Saturday of Championships, we had one qualification match in the morning, and then elimination matches in the afternoon. We were lucky enough to be picked as the second pick of the second seeded alliance, and made it to the semifinals. As stated earlier, we stood up and cheered for each of these 5 matches.

However, unlike during our qualification matches on Thursday and Friday, a team behind us in the stands was constantly yelling at us to sit down. I do not know who this team was, nor do I wish to. Personally, I did not hear anyone say “Can you please sit down for us?”, and instead only caught the "SIT DOWN!"s being thrown out. Ironically, the team directly behind them was also standing and cheering proudly like us, as well as teams located elsewhere in the stands for their respected matches. For our first three matches, we complied, standing up and cheering only when they introduced our team before the match, but then sitting down once the complaints began.

During our last two matches, in the semifinals, we were up against a tough alliance, and knew we would most likely lose and be knocked out of the eliminations. Knowing this, myself and other members of our team continued to proudly stand and cheer throughout both of the matches, withstanding the boo-ing coming from the team behind us. Especially after losing the first match of the semifinals, we knew that the second one would most likely be the last match of our official 2013 season, and the last ever official match as students for our graduating seniors, including myself. I and other seniors contently stood and cheered during our final match, as our four-year student career on our team came to an end.

The icing on the stale cake: After our losing score from our second semifinal match appeared on the screen, the team behind us sarcastically clapped and cheered, showing their joy that we had finally been knocked out and would no longer be showing our spirit. Annoyed, I walked away down to the pits, as to not start anything. The rest of our team, seated, stayed to watch the finals, before moving to find seats to watch Einstein.

My questions for everyone else:

  1. Does your team show spirit in the stands? How?
  2. If you stand and cheer for your team, do you remain so for the duration of the match? What about holding signs?
  3. Do you encounter teams who are unhappy with your spirit in the stands? If so, how do you deal with them?
  4. A team in front of you is standing up during their match, blocking your vision. What do you do? Do you ask for them to sit, or do you respect their spirit and deal with it for a match?
  5. Is spirit in the stands different for qualification vs. elimination matches (Ex. Scouts in the qualifications, who would like an unblocked view of the field)

My personal opinion: Teams have every right to stand up and cheer for their matches. After all, there is a TEAM SPIRIT award! If I hear someone associated with our team upset that a team in front of us is standing, I remind them that they, just like us, and just like every other team, have just spent the past 4 months building and competing with a machine, and deserve to be proud of their hard work. As for our scouts, they try to get seats as far forward in the stands as possible, so that their view can’t be blocked much. And, if it is, I make sure they respect any teams in front of them that are standing, and stand up behind them to scout during the match. As for holding up signs in the stands, as I stated before, I prefer to only use them when our team is announced, because depending on size, they can even further impede the vision of those seated behind us, possibly of those seated even further back. They are fine, however, if they are held in front of you and not over your head. If a team likes to show their spirit when their robot is on the field, that should be respected. If a team cheers for other teams, either since they’re on the same alliance, in a collaboration, or are just friends, that should be respected too. After all, shouldn’t we all just try to be friends with each other? Cooperation? Gracious Professionalism? Even if your team may not stand up and cheer when your robot is competing, please be courteous of those who do. And if you must have a team in front of you sit for some reason, please be considerate and ask nicely, instead of yelling at them angrily to. Remember that you are asking a group of people who have just spent weeks working on a robot not to show their respected enthusiasm about it. Think to yourself: What if you weren’t allowed to cheer and show your happiness when a family member graduated?

2
  1. Our team shows a lot of spirit in the stands, winning or losing (though noticeably less when we are losing) We cheer our team name, number etc. we also cheer for our alliance partners sometimes.
  2. We don’t have any signs. We usually stand for our elimination matches more than our qualifications. If we do stand though, we stand for the entire match.
  3. In my experience we have never encountered any teams that were unhappy with our spirit (save our own maybe for lack thereof). This may be due to the fact that we got seats at the top of our bleachers in both of our regionals.(we didn’t make eliminations at championships)
  4. If the team in front of us is standing and I want to see the match then I will stand up too.
  5. One of the reasons that we don’t stand as often in qualifications is because we need to scout and let other teams scout which is harder to do when standing. The other reason is that elimination matches are so exciting that it really is hard to stay seated.
3

As this is an opinion, I will have to say that I disagree.

You have to remember, you’re in a spectator sport.

What happens when someone on your team stands up in front of you? You’re telling me that you don’t ask them to sit down? What happens at a soccer/basketball game if a fan stands up? Others don’t yell at him/her to sit down? If you put on your blinders and say, “I have the right to stand for all o’ my matches”, you’re not being considerate of others.

I believe that teams can stand and cheer when (a) their team is announced and (b) when the score is announced, but in order to be courteous to others, sit down.

However, I will say that I have violated those rules multiple times, and as a result, I’ve also been the target of many rude “Sit Down” yellings from behind. While it’s definitely annoying at the time, I think back to how much it annoys me when people consistently stand in front of me.

Be considerate,

  • Sunny G.
4

There’s a big difference between showing your spirit, and standing though the whole match.

Frankly, I find standing through the whole match to be extremely inconsiderate and rude. Sure, you may push your scouters up towards the front to get a better view, but other teams may not be able to do that. And depending on where you team is situated in the stands, you may be blocking several teams’s scouters, not to mention their members who want to watch the match too.

Yes, you spent a lot of time working on the robot, we all do. You said you don’t know who the team behind you was? Maybe their robot was on the field too. And maybe they wanted to see it perform too. You can watch your hard work pay off while sitting too, there’s no need to stand through the whole match.

Spirit in the stands is awesome. I usually have a hard time talking after FIRST competitions because I cheer so much, but there are plenty of ways to show spirit that don’t involve blocking other’s view. 1736 (Robot Casserole) always does a fantastic job when it comes to spirit. I think almost every time I’ve seen them at the WI regional, they win the spirit award. And yes, they stand and dance. A lot. But they also always choose seats off to the side of the field, where people almost never end up behind them.

I’ve never run into a team who didn’t like spirit in the stands. But I have certainly been in the place of asking people to sit down during matches.

5

I don’t know who the team behind you was, the story is rude, and they should have handled it better.

But IMHO if you’re not at the very top of the stands, that standing during the duration of your match won’t interfere in other peoples view of the field, you should only stand and cheer when your team is announced and once the match is over. This is what we tell our members on 2826.

It is perfectly ok to stand and cheer for your team, you put in a lot of hard work to build the robot, you should be proud. However you should not hinder the view of people in the stands, especially during qualification matches when teams are trying to scout.

6

Well, if it’s really a spectator sport with avid fans, you don’t sit at all. Most sports I attend are on the college level, but at The University of Virginia basketball and football games you never sit, at all. If you want to see, you have to stand. So I don’t disagree with you because I think FIRST is different, but if you want to stand during your own team’s matches, I think that should be fine. Holding up big signs and numbers however for longer than the time it takes to have your team announced could and should be considered inconsiderate to those behind you.

7

We always stand up and cheer before matches but we never stand up to cheer during qualification matches only eliminations. Every team needs to scout and it’s extremely problematic when the team in front of you is standing up the entire match while you’re trying to scout. If your team wants to stand up and cheer please don’t sit in the very front of the stands.

8

Hold up your big signs and cheer when your team is introduced. Do it again when the (winning :rolleyes:) score is released. Please don’t stand during the match because I’m trying to watch/scout/record my team behind you, and it is really annoying.

9

Personal opinion: Stand for the team/alliance introductions, but then sit back down. Of course when things get heated people sometimes stand up to get a better view, especially if you win the match. Otherwise, I appreciate it when everyone is seated (unless nobody is behind you).

10

We got spirit
yes we do!
What? You don’t have spirit?
What’s wrong with you?

11

Add me to the “stand during team introductions and score reveal” and sit down for the actual match. Can’t find any definition of “spirit” that requires a team to be standing the whole match, blocking the view of perhaps hundreds of other spectators. Not everyone behind you is able to stand when you stand to be able to see the match…some are elderly/handicapped and are thus forced to stare at the backs of your standing team mates for several minutes. Hardly gracious in my opinion.:wink:

12

I’m in the camp of “cheer at the start/end while standing, and while sitting the rest of the time”. C’mon, folks, sitting doesn’t mean you have to be quiet!

However, I would also understand if there was some really exciting moment and a team popped up for a couple of seconds, particularly in elims.

I’ve come down hard before on teams who stood during their entire match, as a scout. Sure, you can push your own scouts to the front or side. What about that small team right behind you that can’t do that, doesn’t even have one full row, and almost everybody is a scout–and they use a paper system? If I’m on that team, and I can’t scout properly due to having to stand up, I’m NOT going to be a happy camper; I might even make a comment on the form about “Can’t scout because they didn’t let me” or some such note.

My opinion on teams cheering because another team got knocked out… Let’s just say that I think it’s pretty close to unprintable, and let it go at that.

One final comment, Ryan, and it has to do with your last question about family members graduating: Most, if not all, graduation ceremonies I’ve been at do not allow more than a quick applause–no cheering–during the ceremony itself, for each graduate. After everybody’s walked, or afterwards, then they’ll typically not care if everybody cuts loose a bit. But during the ceremony, nuh-uh.

13

Some teams rely on coffee or energy drinks more than others :stuck_out_tongue:

14

We’re powered by the energy of the crowd, baby!:stuck_out_tongue:

15

By all means, stand up when your team is introduced and during the score reveal, but not during the match.

Telling other teams to get there earlier to get front seats is not helpful. There are a limited number of front seats, a huge number of people who want them, and I would generally prefer my students not contribute to the perception that being the volunteer who lets the teams in is like participating in the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but less safe. We also aren’t generally aggressive seat-savers.

I’m short (5’ 2"). If a team lower in the stands or (in the case of stadiums that are wider than the field) more centered is standing and the stands don’t have a very steep pitch, I may not be able to see the field even if I stand up too. It’s even worse for little kids in the stands, who might not be able to see unless somebody stands up and puts them on their shoulders, which is unsafe. These are the kids we’re trying to recruit into robotics for future years, and the standing team in front of them is turning their excitement into boredom and frustration because there’s something exciting happening on the field, but they can’t see it.

The first few times I have to ask someone to please sit down, I’m usually very polite. The fifteenth, I start to get a little frustrated, and occasionally my graciousness slips a bit. I’m guessing you weren’t the only problem the team behind you was having with visibility, and they lost their cool a little.

You can cheer just as loudly and enthusiastically from a seated position. I may cheer for you too. If I can’t see the field, I’m not cheering for anyone. I’m just annoying you by asking you to please consider assuming the seated position or irritably waiting for your match to end while not getting any scouting data on you or the other five teams on the field.

16

We used to stand up during the entire match to cheer and get a good look at our machine. We were not the only ones doing so either. But in recent years, with more teams and overcrowded arenas, we found that people stopped standing and didn’t like when we stood.

I even remember one team whose members through ice at our students because they were standing up.

If everyone agrees to stand for matches then we can work around that. If everyone agrees to sit for matches then everyone should have a view. The problem becomes when teams at a regional cannot agree and therefore our cheering forms are incompatible. For example, if we all agree to sit down but team XXXX stands up then we have to stand up to see and then it becomes this domino effect.

It would be great to have volunteers in the stands to help with crowd control, people sitting in aisles, and the whole standing up debate. Of course, it would be great just to have more volunteers. :stuck_out_tongue:

17

This concept is simple:

Stand up for your teams introduction. Stand up for the final score.

Sit down and show some basic respect for the many teams behind you during the match.

18

And add to the debate the different culturally based attitudes that lead to some of our international teams fervently standing and cheering through any match that has their team or any other from that same nation…:wink:

19

Yeah…personally, PERSONALLY I would feel a little peeved if the team in front of me stood for the duration of the match. RAID (2537) is a relatively large team (60~ members), so I know that if we stood up for two minutes during a match we’d be blocking a lot of people’s views. However, it doesn’t really take a 60 person team to block a view. Even a 15 person team can block a short person like me (5’4"). I’m fine with standing and cheering at the top of your lungs during introductions (as a drive team member, there’s no better feeling than to see all of your teammates yelling at you and standing and generally going crazy). It’s an exciting time, and you shouldn’t be afraid to show it. But if you’re going to block a scout’s view for the ENTIRE match, eh…I mean…I’d ask you to sit down respectfully a couple of times, but if your whole team just did that for all of World’s (4 days, I believe?) I’d probably have a quick chat with your lead mentor or team captain by the 3rd day.

20

Put me down for ‘trying to stay mostly seated’ during matches. Before and after is cool, but I personally don’t like standing, as it’s sent a poor message to scouts who are watching/recording behind us and also puts the elderly, handicapped, etc at a disadvantage. Granted we’re not a hugely spirited team, but I think we can show spirit without standing through the match. That said, I of course don’t condone rudeness from our scouts in remedying such situations.

A note on college sports, I tend to notice the student section standing most of the games, but the alumni/etc sections less so. FIRST mixes these two, so sitting would likely dominate this analogy. Also, many if not most graduations I’ve been to ask that you hold all applause until the final name. Actually, a couple people were actually arrested (in another state) the year before I graduated for doing so. Such disruptions prevent other families from hearing their students’ names at all.