Quote:
Originally Posted by BGiraud
Couldn't the legal mentor/coach step back and let his teams analyst step forward and effectively coach the drive team allowing the mentor/coach to move between teams in the drive team area to effectively act as the analyst?
|
In hypothetical terms, there is nothing illegal about this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wevets
Legal or not, I think it's bad for a few reasons:
1. It imparts to the students that they don't have the ability to be analysts.
2. It deprives some student of a position on the drive team.
3. If, in fact, coaches/mentors have better judgement than students, it gives an unfair advantage to a team that has an adult on the drive team when other teams don't.
4. It just seems contrary to the FIRST principal that this is a competition of students, by students and for students.
And it begs the question, if an alliance won with a coach/mentor on thier drive team, wouldn't their win have a asterisk in the record books?
|
FIRST is not by the students for the students. Maybe thats how your team is run, but that's not what the program is about. FIRST's goal is to connect students with Industry Professionals with the hope that those professionals will inspire their students to pursue the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Some of the higher ups in FIRST have often said that if you're not working with Mentors from the Industry you're missing out.
It bothers me that you consider an Adult Coach and Unfair advantage - because it's not. EVERY team is allowed to chose either an Adult or a Student to be the Coach, no one is telling you that you must use either one. If you truly feel that an Adult Coach is so Advantageous, then maybe you need to reassess your priorities and see if you can fit an Adult Coach into your team.
Also, if you were to go back through the years and asterisk every team that won with an Adult mentor, then you'd probably Asterisk more than 2/3rds of the Regional and Championship winners in history.
(I do apologize if my tone is a bit harsh, I get a little offended by people who claim that Adult Coaches are a bad thing...)