Hi everyone. Same as a couple hundred other teams, 2020 was supposed to be our tenth season. 3656 had special shirts, hundreds of tenth anniversary pins; none of which saw the light of competition. Y’all can probably see where I’m going by now.
For teams that did not compete during 2020, such as mine, should 2021 count as their tenth (or whatever number nth) season, or should we put all our tenth anniversary gear away and count 2021 as not just our eleventh year of existence, but also our eleventh season? And what nth season should 2021 be considered as?
Note: I am assuming that what season a team is in is not solely dependent on how many years a team has existed.
I would count 2021 as your tenth season competing and celebrate it. And do something special for your seniors to honor the contributions from this cut very short year that they gave that will live on next year.
Of course this was supposed to be 3468’s 10th season as well. As for the question, I’d say Yes. This year’s Rookie teams still get Rookie status next year, and while the game may change some, its technically a continuation, so as far as I’m concerned, its the same season.
Who knew that FIRST would be so hardcore about the No-Bag-N-Tag? huh?
I think it’s messy because some teams competed and others didn’t. I think that 2020 counts as your tenth season because it would be very weird to not count a year for certain teams. The logically person in me just wouldn’t want to deal with that when saying what season it is for a team.
However, if you have all this gear and you want to celebrate it I would say that’s great and works fine but I would personally count it as your 11th. Really counting years doesn’t matter too much so I would say celebrate your 10th year next season and enjoy it and then start the next year as 12 to make it simple
my teams on the same scenario but the other way, our team hits 5 years in 2021 and we had something big planned for it as soon as the next kickoff happened, but if its the same game next year would it count? we decided we’ll go by years rather than games to simplify things
If 2020 was a half a season, and 2021 will also be half a season, I think you better put something like “8 and two-halves.” In this case, I feel like two halves don’t quite make a whole.
Did you guys say it was the 10th anniversary or 10th season? We are in the same boat (3596) where 2020 would have been the 10th season, but 2021 is the 10th anniversary.
When talking to people outside the team (ex: sponsors) I’d totally stick to keeping “number of seasons” aligned with calendar years, don’t skip a year. Doing so will invite conversation about “why wasn’t this a season?” which, though not inappropriate, probably isn’t what you were attempting to talk about in the first place.
To keep the external-facing message consistent, I’d also use the aligned-with-calendar-years notion internally to the team. The “team lore” would capture how unconventional ( weird). season 2020 and 2021 were.
But, unless you really want to lawyer the definition of “season”, I’d say “count it” and be proud .
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