Playing Off a Huuuge Mistake

carnation · #1 10-07-2006, 08:08 PM

One of our daughters was in the homecoming pageant at her university this week. The announcer was a senior who knew all the contestants and said, "And for the last finalist--Jennifer SoandSo!" They gave the girl her flowers and he looked again and said something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. It's not Jennifer Soandso, it's Jennifer Smith!"

The girl had to give back her flowers and go offstage.

Last year at cheer regionals, one daughter's squad was announced as one of the 4 who would go to State. For ten minutes, they cried for happiness and jumped up and down and rejoiced, then suddenly someone announced,"Sorry folks, wrong school. It's not RHS that's going, it's LHS." You;d think by that point, they would have let both go--it was awful. The seniors came apart.

How on earth would you play off something like either one of these? Correct it right off? Pretend you didn't mess up? Try to get somebody else to fix it?

highflyerlaura · #2 10-07-2006, 08:40 PM

oooo..... thats a nasty situation to be in, for all concerned. I feel for both lots of kids, as I've been in similar situations before....

I do a lot of horse-riding stuff and at a local Pony Club event earlier this year there was a major mix-up in the pointscores of one of the events, resulting in a correction having to be made. I was having a short break at the time and I got back while the other club executives were trying to decide what to do. I told them to quit fooling around, otherwise I'd make the decision myself and put it out via the PA system. Anyway two minutes later I saw the parents of both kids walking towards the Announcers box and I said to the others "Ok, times up, we've got parents and officials on the way from the two different clubs looking as if they are both going to protest. I'm taking this matter into my own hands and declaring them both joint-winners of the event. If you don't like it you can go and set up the jumping course again so that they can have a run off, because I'm not in the mood for protests at the moment".

Considering that I had the microphone in hand and both parties were nearly to us, they agreed and thankfully the two other clubs were happy with the announcement too.....

SoCalGirl · #3 10-07-2006, 08:43 PM

Correct it ASAP.

FSUZeta · #4 10-07-2006, 09:07 PM

carnation, that is awful on both accounts. too bad that the authorities did not use the good judgement highflyerlaura did!!

i remember attending a local beauty pageant as a child when there were two contestants whose first name was ann. one of the ann's was incredibly popular and sweet and the whole crowd was pulling for her. as the finalists were called, the announcer began,"and our next finalist is ann..." and the crowd begins to roar their approval, and drowns out the last name. popular ann steps out to join the other finalists, but before she reaches her place, the emcee says, excuse me, there seems to be a mistake-the finalist is ann #2. of course, popular ann took her original place and ann #2 stood with the other finalists. popular ann held her composure until the curtains were drawn, and then broke down. it was awful. everyone felt bad for popular ann, but also for ann #2, who also had to deal with the ackward situation.

valkyrie · #5 10-07-2006, 09:40 PM

LOL this happened on The Bachelor (it pains me to admit that I've ever watched that show) once -- the guy was handing out roses to the women who were to continue to the next round, and he called the name of a woman he didn't want. He realized his mistake and let her continue anyway, and she did -- they were all very gracious, but I think she was eliminated the next week.

I think that letting the "faux winner" continue is a good option. Does it really hurt anyone?

carnation · #6 10-07-2006, 10:23 PM

Probably having a faux winner wouldn't hurt in most cases unless some of the parents or contestants got hold of the score sheet and found out that they or their child scored a whole lot higher that the faux. Then you'd have all these people threatening to sue, no doubt.

I'm thinking of all those high school seniors who got acceptance letters from UGa last year and soon afterwards, they got letters from UGa saying that it was all a mistake--I can't remember any more details but it seems that these kids were at the bottom of the applicant pool. I thought for sure we'd hear about lawsuits from the briefly accepted ones and also from people who were rejected but knew they had better SATS and grades than the "fauxs". Apparently, UGa managed to keep it all under wraps if there was a stink.

James · #7 10-08-2006, 05:10 AM

A mistake in the announcing is different than a mistake in the score . . If a team wins a competition, and the anouncer gives the name of the wrong team by accident and then corrects . . . why would anyone want to send the wrong team also?

They didn't win.

highflyerlaura · #8 10-08-2006, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James

A mistake in the announcing is different than a mistake in the score . . If a team wins a competition, and the anouncer gives the name of the wrong team by accident and then corrects . . . why would anyone want to send the wrong team also?

They didn't win.

Thats not the point though. The point is that its not fair on the people who really get in and put the effort in, get told that they won then get their spirits destroyed because either someone bungled while they were announcing or there was a miscount to begin with.

Lets put it into another perspective then. Say you were on an NFL team, you were one point behind and you had just kicked a goal that would have won you the entire competition for the season in the last minute of the game, though before the referee can award it, hes advised that there was an infringement in the play and he then decides that it should be dis-allowed, loosing you the game. Lets say that on video just after the game it was found out that the infringement was really a bungle by the linesmen, or in another case that the team that had beat you had been found to of had a player that was doping. How would you feel? At the very least I would say that you would feel very cheated.

What we are all getting at though James, is that even though sure, in some cases there has got to be an overall winner, for cases where there has been a mistake or bungle made by the officials that there should at least be some form of consellation awarded to the team or individual that has had their hopes/spirits dashed due to the official being a dumb-bell. After all, wheres the point in competing if your victory comes at someone else's loss at no fault of their own after being officially told that they had won then had their elation ripped out from under them?

Personally I wouldn't want to win that way, and it would feel degrading if I did.

BadSquirrelBeta · #9 10-08-2006, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariesrising

I'm one of those people that would probably wait until the whole event is over, then tell everyone afterwards so that no public embarassment would ensue. But I'm a wuss=)

Wow...these are tricky situations. Especially when the feelings of so many are involved.

This actually happened to my son (These kids were 6 and 7 years old at the time). He was the clear cut winner of a Pitch, Hit and Throw contest for baseball, but the volunteer who was recording scores put his scores under the wrong child's name. The minute the other child's name was announced the entire place fell silent. Well, I started to clap and took the other little boy to the stage (I was team mom). Everone else was clapping too by then.

Quickly the judges added a "tie" for my son because they realized their mistake. Needless to say it made the other little boy's confidence rocket because he was having a terrible year at home (his parents were divorcing, etc.) and he was actually a good little player.

There was another situation where the local hometown royality contest had a scoring mistake so in the end, 3 girls were named "princess" rather than just the traditional 2. There were only 4 girls in the running that year. Well, they turned out to be a beautiful court and all would have been fine in a perfect world until someone who had nothing to do with the contest decided to stir the pot and write a horrible letter to the editor about it. Well needless to say the 3rd Princess was devistated and the royality committee wrote a very nice letter and took responsibility for their mistake, but said, what did a 3rd Princess really hurt and why make everyone come away from the contest feeling really bad for "the odd man out" when this was supposed to be something to showcase all the great young women of the community?

Granted, sometimes being able to add a "tie" or another winner, for warm and fuzzies "OK". But, when the stakes are higher I just don't know how a situation like that can be played off. Sometimes things just go wrong due to human error with no way to "fix" it in a nice way.

Look at how the miscommunication flew about the trapped WV minors being alive when in reality they were not. That was unfortunate and couldn't be "fixed".

AlexMack · #10 10-08-2006, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James

A mistake in the announcing is different than a mistake in the score . . If a team wins a competition, and the anouncer gives the name of the wrong team by accident and then corrects . . . why would anyone want to send the wrong team also?

They didn't win.

I agree with this. They've got to learn to face disappointment, no child can be mollycoddled throughout their lives. The constant battle to make sure no child's self esteem gets bruised has reached ridiculous extremes.
Yes, a misannouncement sucks and it's horrible, but it won't ruin the rest of your life.

PM_Mama00 · #11 10-08-2006, 09:50 PM

Didn't this happen with one of the Russian beauty pageants?

SoCalGirl · #12 10-08-2006, 11:51 PM

It happened when, Mrs World?, was hosted in Russia. They had to retape the announcement.

CutiePie2000 · #13 10-11-2006, 12:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valkyrie

LOL this happened on The Bachelor (it pains me to admit that I've ever watched that show) once -- the guy was handing out roses to the women who were to continue to the next round, and he called the name of a woman he didn't want.

Ha ha...that was Jesse Palmer. HA HA!

KSUViolet06 · #14 10-11-2006, 01:26 PM

This happened with Homecoming Court at my HS when I was a junior. I was in Student Council and was in charge of tabulating the votes for who made court.

I finished tabulating and handed the NHS-TV morning announcements kid a clear list of who made it.

Well, there were 2 girls in the running for court with the same name (let's call them Katie Smith & Katie Simmons). Katie Simmons was on the list. The other was not.

But for some reason, the guy read Katie Smith instead of the Katie that was ACTUALLY on the list. He realized his mistake after the broadcast, but there was nothing he could do.

I asked our advisor what we should do, and she told us to just let the results stand as what was read on the announcements. She didn't want to cause any drama.

So to this day, Katie Smith has no clue that she actually didn't make court.

FSUZeta · #15 10-11-2006, 03:09 PM

unless she is, in reality, sheetcake or gluestick, her on gc.