Haz, are your the competitor in the blue or in the black? I'm assuming you are on the right side of this photo because the other guy appears to be too young.
Haz, your statement ---- one thing that is opposite this theory is i remember as of 1980 nobody ever won the mr. America after their third attempt."... is 100% correct and something we all noticed back then and even earlier.
That same idea became known as the "Teufel Syndrome" and was often discussed when one or more friends were planning to compete at three or more attempts in the same contest. We talked about it frequently and came up with the following possible conclusion .......
Usually the same judges judge the same contest each year and if they notice someone on stage who had been there the previous year or two years, they tend to say to themselves .... "He hasn't improved too much since last year." Or, "He doesn't look as good as he did last year." and that judge judges that competitor based on his "feelings" rather than how the guys actually appears among his fellow competitors.
We had a saying... "You have to be a hell of a lot better than you were last year to do a little bit better this year!" And in most of our cases, that proved to be a valid statement.
Thanks, Haz. ALways great to communicate with someone on this board who knows what the hell they are talking about and refuses to throw a temper tantrum or make caustic remarks against the guys and gals who work so hard to be up there.
