On my team, we started out years ago with only a single coach who knew how to program. Then I joined the team. Freshman year, all I did was look over said coaches shoulder once or twice, but starting sophomore year, I did more and more of the programming. This year and last year, it was mostly mine (there are two other student programmers, both of whom were indespensible). But the thing is this: I'm good at coming up with wack ways of making things work (i.e. magic code), another of our 3 is very good at complex mathematical stuff, and the third is a jack of all trades. If one of us disappeared, we'd be shaken up, if two went, we'd be hurting, and if we all went, the team would be sunk
But the're are plenty of people who
could learn to write programs... it's very easy. Just takes a little bit of time... I bet less than 3 hours.