On Jul 17, 10:24 am, Steve Bonine wrote:
wrote:
My high school was involved in a competition known then as
"Mathletes", where we'd compete against teams from other schools in
solving math problems.

IMHO there was never a more level playing field, because all
competitors got the same problems, the same amount of time and had the
same resources.
....
But at the end of the last meet, our A team had the highest season
points score, and the B team had the second highest.

I suspect that this is actually an illustration that all the competitors
did not really have the same resources. How much influence did your
coach have in how well the team did?

None, we didn't have a coach. We had a faculty moderator, whose job it
was
to see that we got to the meets and behaved ourselves.

Some of the teams were probably
coached by a teacher who was pressed into the position and had neither
the ability nor motivation to push the team to be competitive, while I
bet your coach was excellent.

He was excellent in that he made sure we knew when the meets were and
how we'd get there. The rest was up to us.

We won because *we* had ability and motivation, not because we were
pushed.

Native ability is just part of the puzzle. Unless the opportunity and
motivation is there to develop the skill, nothing will ever come of it.

The opportunity was that the Mathletes competition existed. The
motivation was our own; that we knew we were good and wanted to prove
it. And we did, even if the Diana Moon Glompers clones in charge
denied the B team their trophy.

As for amateur radio contesting, what motivates the big guns? Their
achievements are only appreciated by a few; amateur radiosport is
generally not a spectator thing. Nor will they be paid.

And while they are intensely competitive, (google "Barracuda Rules"),
nothing the big guns do to win remains a secret for very long. Take
computer logging - it started as a very expensive and complex
alternative to paper, but now there are all sorts of logging software
packages that are free or of nominal cost, and which will run on
computers so old they are dumpster fodder. What could be fairer than
that? Yet I recall folks years ago who said it was unfair that the big
guns had computer logging.

73 de Jim, N2EY