[DampRobot]

The standard end to this kind of "student built/coached/whatever vs. mentor built" argument is that people agree that not all things may work for all teams. They also agree to continue to allow each team to go about things in their own way. While this is a fine solution, I hope that people understand that it doesn't solve the problem in a way that everyone benefits from.

In this case, the gist of the disagreement seems to be this. Some teams (including slightly more young teams) would like only students to be allowed to coach. Other teams (including a high percentage of teams with over 16 years of experience, teams like the one I am on) would like both students and mentors to be able to act as drive coaches. No one, I believe, is arguing that only mentors should be allowed to be coaches.

While allowing both students and mentors to coach is a solution, it doesn't satisfy those on the other side of the issue. The people who don't want mentors to be able to coach seem to have had bad experiences with a few teams who have mentors as coaches. They have a real (and I believe, legitimate) argument that it's not in the best interest of FRC to allow any mentors to continue coaching. The end that these people desire isn't to allow students to coach, but to keep mentors from coaching on any team.

Please don't read into this that I support one side or another. I'm perfectly fine with having mentors coach, but I wouldn't argue if Manchester decided to stop the practice next year. I personally coached my team this year on the field, and can't say I had a particularly good or bad experience with mentor coaches. I simply believe that the agreement people seem to have reached doesn't satisfy everyone, and we shouldn't suppose that it does.