[mathking]

I am reminded of a music history professor's response to a student who said "Rap music is crap, it's not even real music." The response was "There is good music and bad music, but there is no such thing as a bad style of music." The decision about adult coach and student coach has to be made by the team. It's not a morality play and there is no one right answer.

We have generally had adults coaching at our in season FRC events (with a couple of exceptions) and students who had been drivers coaching at our off season events. One of the reasons we have been hesitant to have students as coaches has been because of some of the pushy adults. There have been a few jerks but by and large the pushier adults are just people who are used to students being deferential to them. It can be hard for students when an adult is telling them to do something they don't think is the best course of action. On the other hand, we have had more than a few student coaches on allied teams loose their cool and raise the possibility of serious arguments.

The mentor who has been our on field coach for most matches the past five years is an experienced FRC coach now, and has coached other sports as well. But as important as this experience is, what makes him a great FRC coach is the fact the he is amazingly level headed. He is able to keep our team (and often other teams) calm and manage all the ups and downs in an FRC match. I remember once when an adult mentor on another team was trying to "fix" our robot between two elimination matches. He came very close to breaking the robot because while he could see what was wrong, he didn't know our robot and didn't know the correct way to fix it. Our coach was able to address him adult to adult and get him to back off without making him angry. In a way that a student would have been hard pressed to do. We got the robot fixed and won the match and the round. (And then promptly broke in the semi-finals. Hey, it's FRC.)

So my view is like many other posters. Do what works for your team. As the mentor who has effectively been the head coach or co-head coach for the past decade, I view my job as choosing a drive team that will be the most likely to accomplish all of our goals. Doing well in the competition is a very important part of that. Being good role models is more important. But doing our best to provide a positive, rewarding experience for all of our team members is the most important goal.