[Adam Freeman]

I hesitate to chime into the conversation because I don't want to say that one way or another is better for someone else's team.

For HOT, we have always had an adult coach. Before me we had a great coach in Ken Velzy. I learned from him how to coach and work with the students.

Coaching the HOT Drive team is one of the most rewarding opportunities I have had in my life. Getting to work with our "best of the best" students is amazing. Meeting other students and metors from the greatest teams in FIRST is what keeps me going. I know FIRST is for inspiring students, but us adults also live for this stuff as well.

When I was working in the pits...or scouting in the stands, I never met anyone. No one knew who I was...and I was not out-going enough to go out an meet people from other teams. Without meeting some of these other great FRC mentors (JVN, Cory/EJ, Karthik, Paul Copioli, etc...) and hearing/discussing FRC with them, I would not be nearly the mentor I am today. Hopefully, I am paying that back to both my team and other teams during my interactions with the students, presentations, etc...

From a pre-match perspective, I try to ask our alliance partners what they can do and what strategy they would like to run. 95% of the time, it's exactly what we want to do anyways. The other 5% we need to have a discussion on how to comprimise on the differences. I hope to not come off as a jerk during strategy discussions. But, we will call out a team that is lying about their capabilities.

During match play and just after is probably where I need the most work on emotion control. I try to limit any outburst to just my drive team. But, some times we may yell to another team about what to do. In qualifications if an assignment is missed, I usually let it go. In eliminations, we might have a conversation about what/how to do it in the next match.

I have worked with both adult and student coaches that are both incredibly talented and also some that are completely worthless on the field. Typically the students are much more open and honest about their machine and it's capabilities. I have no issue working with student coaches and drivers.

The one concern I have for teams with student coaches, is seeing the driver's and coaches arguing on the field. In the coach/driver relationship there needs to be clear definition that the coach is responsible for what on the field. Strategy, positioning, who to defend, how/when to score, etc... these need to be clearly determined through practice and lines of responsibility. When it's student to student, their is a possible power struggle that can play out during the match... effecting both the team and alliance.

For us, my driver's control the robot...but when given a command by me, that should override what they think is needed at that time. Because I can see the entire field and know what else is happening, I have the ultimate say. That allows the driver's to be free of the burden of answering why we did something....since it all falls on me. It helps me protect them in a way from the rest of the team.

I guess this is a long way of saying I hope I am providing a net benefit to our students and FRC in general as an adult coach of the HOT Team, and that is one of the biggest reasons why we choose to have an adult coach.