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Originally Posted by Qbot2640
Many people are saying that this should be up to the team and what works best for them. That would be fine if the team competed alone.
Leave it up to the alliance if it is truly an "individual" decision - so a team that believes this role should be filled by a non-college student member does not have to endure the possibility of an alliance partner's adult coach trying to tell them what to do.
Yes - it's rare...but there are rude and aggressive adult coaches* out there, and in my opinion one is too many. Especially when the alternative is teaching a student to fill the leadership role. I have heard all the arguments for having adult coaches...and there are good ones...but none outweigh the negative effect of the dominating adult coach on a young driver.
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I don't really follow this reasoning. One person of a group is a jerk, so no person of that group gets to do something. Of course jerks shouldn't be on drive teams, and no student should have to deal with one, but that's no reason to fundamentally change the way hundreds of teams operate. One could argue that this scenario is analogous to the real world. After high school, these students will have numerous opportunities to "work with" insufferable pricks who don't respect them and act superior based on semi-arbitrary characteristics like their age. The difference in FIRST is that you don't have to work with them for more than 15 minutes.
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I have a few scattered thoughts that I want to mention in my dazed, sleep deprived, I-have-two-exams-in-24-hours state. For background, I was a student drive coach for my high school team, 1714, in 2009 (though certainly not a very good one). Since then I have done match strategy for 2791 for the past 4 years working under two great adult coaches, and I mentor coached for one off season event.
We talk a lot about a mentor coach depriving a student of opportunity on their team, but do we ever stop and think about the other 3/4 of the drive team? It's possible that picking a student coach when a mentor would be more qualified (not that this is always the case!) would be depriving those other 3 students of essential leadership and inspiration. What about the other 20 students on that team? They've worked their butts off and want nothing more than to leave everything on the field. Do we not owe it to them to enable our team to have the best possible chance of success we can manage?
The caveat I will add is that my opportunity to be a student coach on 1714 was a turning point in both my FRC career and my life as a whole and that I can't say for certain that I would be involved in FRC to the extent that I am without that opportunity.
On 2791, this debate is purely academic. In our six year history there has been one student whom was vocally interested in strategy and coaching. This student worked with me for several years doing match strategy. He also was on the drive team as an operator for two years as well as a coach for part of an off season event. I don't think we deprived him of anything, really, seeing as he was exposed to and worked in a lot of the aspects of coaching (forming a strategy, executing under pressure, behind the glass decision making).
For everyone else, our mentor coaches have served as role models and inspiration. The drive team works extensively with the drive coach throughout the year, and this mentorship opportunity has been phenomenal. I immediately think of a student who started out timid, a little awkward, and unsure of his place on 2791. He stepped up and tried driving in 2011 for an event... and he wasn't that great at it. This student worked HARD since then, seeing the drive team as a goal he wanted to reach more than anything on the team. His experience working under the direct mentorship of our drive coach for nearly two years now has clearly helped him grow as a person. He's more confident, more determined, more motivated in general. He's now the Vice President of the team and probably a shoe-in for a driver position again next year. I genuinely think that if he was to work with a series of student coaches, he would not have had the kind of inspiring, developing experience that a consistent, experienced, and mature mentor coach can help him achieve.
One last thought: As a student coach in 2009, I cannot think of a single time in which I was overruled by an older coach, ever. We competed at Champs and IRI that year so we had plenty of opportunity for this to happen. I always walked into strategy meetings with a firm game plan and a willingness to listen, and every single time I was taken seriously. If your student coach is smart, resourceful, analytical, and a good communicator, you should have no problems at all in your strategy meetings or on the field.