Quote:
Originally Posted by moogboy
I muscled my way into a spot on the drive team during my first year on the team (Rebound Rumble, I was a junior).
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So in selecting drivers for the long term, all the bad vibes I just shared need to be avoided. As of this time, the only way I've seen teams effectively deal with it firsthand is to hold complete, fair driver tryouts and/or pass the reins at off season events to rookie drivers and see what happens. It's important that everyone on the team understands the process, and that the process is maintained.
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During my FRC years, I was in pretty much the same situation as moogboy. In my first year of FRC (also Rebound Rumble), I was muscled into talking to all the other teams that came to strategize with us. I passed this information onto our drivers religiously. I desperately wanted to drive, but as there was a pair of friends who drove last year and had more experience, they got first dibs on driving. They were chosen last year because no one else really wanted to drive. We didn't have actual tryouts that year, but those of us that really wanted to drive got to drive for one match, and see if anything spectacular happened. In the end, it was narrowed down to me or last year's driver. Therefore, it was put to a vote by the mentors. I lost by one vote.
I can't fairly comment on whether or not that was the right way to select a drive team member.
For Ultimate Ascent, from the beginning of the season, everyone was promised the chance to try out for the drive team too. Crunch time came, and we never had a practical driver test. It was painfully obvious that I wanted to drive. My entire existence as a contributing member of the team was most definitely not built on a foundation consisting of little more than "I want to drive the robot, and if I work hard then I will get to drive the robot." Sure, there was a little bit of that, but I simply wanted whatever gave us the best shot of getting into eliminations. At this point, I was co-captain and running the meetings. The other co-captain was essentially co-captain in name only. I was in a very awkward position. It was essentially decided that I would get to choose who drives and who doesn't. I could have muscled my way into driver. However, I didn't want any of the bad vibes felt by moogboy, nor did I want accusations of being unfair. Therefore, I handed the decision off to our teacher-advisor, assuming that there would be tryouts. However, he decided against driver tryouts. I was very disappointed, because I had been promising the entire team that they would get fair tryouts. Note that I wasn't the only one who desperately wanted to drive. There were quite a few team members who would have loved a chance to drive. We all took a rules test, and almost everyone passed. Thus, it came down to our teacher-advisor to decide. He was new to the team for Ultimate Ascent, and talked to the mentors, who agreed that the drivers last year get to drive because they had the most experience. I was incredibly disappointed with the decision, but even more so with the process. In the end, I was the coach, which no one else wanted. I enjoyed my time as coach, but that doesn't stop me from regretting my decisions about the drive team.
That was not the right way to select a drive team.
Therefore, I will reiterate what moogboy had to say: "So in selecting drivers for the long term, all the bad vibes I just shared need to be avoided. As of this time, the only way I've seen teams effectively deal with it firsthand is to hold complete, fair driver tryouts and/or pass the reins at off season events to rookie drivers and see what happens. It's important that everyone on the team understands the process, and that the process is maintained." I will also add this: Even though I was in the same situation as moogboy, and made the opposite decision, I don't regret my decisions any less than he does his. There were still plenty of bad vibes on our team, a good number of which were still directed at me.