[PayneTrain]

As a drive coach, and someone who can get very emotionally-charged in matches and in the pit at both ends of the spectrum, I go out of my way to moderate myself with other teams. At Virginia, we were allied with a team that was just as good as ours, and ended up losing to us in the quarters, and a team that, bless them, was a brave little toaster.

The coach of the good team was very frustrated with the BLTs, and I knew I was at their late arrival to the competition and their lack of good communication skills, but I didn't let it get to me. If I get frustrated at that team, it's reflecting poorly on a lot more people than myself. I know my drivers looked at the non-BLT team differently for the rest of the day after watching their coach get visibly frustrated.

This year, more than ever, teams need to communicate if they want a snowball's chance in hell of winning all of their matches. Our drivers met with both our teams and our opposing alliance in the pits for every match possible (except for the times FMS had us getting in queue 1 match after we got out...) Personally witnessing great robots lose more than they should have in VA, strategy is key, even if you are playing with the bottom teams in the rankings.

I may be a senior in high school, but I'm the drive coach because the mentors know I'm not going to let other teams give my guys any crap. We all butt our robots together in the same key in the same bumper colors and stand next to each other. We are, for 135 seconds, a team. I don't care if your robot could eat ours for breakfast, or vice-versa. The 12 of us and our 3 robots should be focusing on beating the team on the other side of the glass. This isn't your party, it's everyone's party.

Primary and Secondary drivers live in their own world, as they should. They use some weird in-game telepathy to accomplish what the alliance needs. As a coach, I will be darting up and down the coaches' zone behind the driver boxes to shake other coaches and YELL, yes yell, at them. It gets loud on the field, people. I need your attention to relay vital information. It's not about me, it's about us. Drive coaches are ambassadors to the other teams on the alliance; it's our job to relay information between the coaches to our drivers. I play nice, but I also play to win. Our team believes that the pursuit of winning is the greatest inspiration. I won't judge you for your team's mission if you don't dog on ours.

On another note, I have gone out of my way to not make brash, wild assumptions of an organization of dozens of talented, well-meaning individuals based on one experience. It has yet to disappoint me, at least in the realm of FRC. Even so, keep this in mind: my mentors say that that we aren't tested until we are down for the count on the field, but we are tested, fairly or not, on every square foot of the venue over the weekend. Try to keep that thought stuck on the filter between your brain and your mouth.