nbonaddio wrote:hvincent wrote:nbonaddio wrote:
To put it another way: Fringe (and by extension, Sweepstakes) is fundamentally healthier when they are pathologically competitive and not building things with nine wheels.
I think buggy is fundamentally healthier when people realize that it's totally fine to build ridiculous things regardless of whether or not it'll bring them a trophy. What do teams even get for winning? It's not like this is a national-level competitive sport with billions of dollars of corporate investment on the line (nor should it even begin to approach that). If there are going to be rivalries and grudge matches and competition, it should be because the student teams feel the urge to egg each other on, not because some alumni with a boner for nostalgia is disappointed about how their investment isn't causing the right teams to win.
In the interest of commonality, because I'm arguing black and you're arguing white when the reality is grayer than Pittsburgh in November, and because you do make good points and do so in a well-written, cogent yet attacking style, I will say that I hear and understand your viewpoint while respectfully disagreeing.
As long as there's going to be someone on either side of this gradient to acknowledge that, I'm okay with this.
On a whole, I really don't think that the university-level interest in buggy is really dropping that much; there's been a few hits to greeks that's certainly lowered that side of the field (I miss when SigNu was more of a presence, man), but independents have been stepping up to fill in. 08-11 was a really exciting period just because of a bunch of record-breaking suddenly happening, but in the 20 years or so when there weren't expectations of records set every year, was buggy really in that much worse shape?
I'm optimistic for how this year is going to affect future years, because the barrier to the podium looks like it suddenly dropped down a notch. This means more of the underdogs are going to feel like they have a chance to push hard and break through, while anyone who's on top knows that they're going to have to work way harder to increase their lead. That's why I don't buy anyone's claims that this is a sign of impending failure. The students are going to work this out however they feel like, and I see my job as an alumni as encouraging them to be safe, have fun, and work their asses off for what they want.
At the end of the day, someone's going to walk home with a trophy; I really do not give two shits who it is or how fast their roll was. This is a ridiculous made-up sport with made-up rules and made-up awards, so I have a pretty hard time getting super worried about performance.