Quote:
Originally Posted by KrazyCarl92
There have been a lot of posts about jerk/rude/aggressive adult drive coaches, but I haven't seen any posts about jerk/rude/aggressive student drive coaches. The issue is the jerk/rude/aggressive drive coaches, irregardless of their age. If you think that those behaviors are exclusive to adults, you're kidding yourself. It has nothing to do with the rules about the age of who is eligible for the position.
Team 20 uses a student drive coach, but we understand and respect other teams' decisions to use mentors in this role. Let's face it, some of those mentors are phenomenal sources of inspiration. Those 9+ students on the field with that alliance all get to work closely with them. Would those students be more inspired if a student was on the field performing the same role as that inspirational mentor? Having students work closely with adult mentors who are role models in STEM is the way that FIRST aims to change culture and inspire young people to become leaders in STEM. Do not forget that the FIRST mission says "mentor" the exact same number of times it says "young people".
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I'm not making this post to criticize students, but just following through some logic.
As a mentor, I run into rude student coaches about just as much as rude mentor coaches. The rude mentor coach is more likely to dominate a discussion, the rude mentor coach is more likely to go along with the discussion but then do their own plan anyway.
I would wager it's just far less likely that a mentor comes on chief after the fact to complain about team XYZs rude student coach than the opposite situation.
I agree with others that teams should put the best person out there.
It was important to me that I do not coach for the 2014 season, so we tried out some other coaches this fall. One was a sophomore in high school, one was a sophomore in college. Age wasn't a factor, we picked people.