[lscime]

Team MARS has always had a policy of student coaches and as far as I know that policy will continue. We of course recognize that that teams with adult-coaches bring home more blue banners on average, but our reasoning is as follows: as much as our mentors inspire us, and teach us, and are involved during build season, at the competitions and all that time in between, we feel that the students should "own" their successes and defeats on the field. We want and trust the students to be the representatives of our team down there on the field. Additionally we value the life skills (leadership etc.) that student coaches have the opportunity to develop. I would also like to add that after having been on the drive team, we've found student-coached alliance partners to be (generally) more amicable and better team-players than adult-coached teams. Of course issues almost never ever arise, and we only have our experiences to go on.

All this being said I don't think that any of these arguments can be generalized or applied broadly in any way. Every team is different and should, as a team, make these decisions based on what works well for them, and based on what they want/expect to gain from the "match" experience.

2cents,
-Luke