[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by popnbrown

All the things you mentioned, how amazing would it be if a group of 14-18 year olds were capable of working this out themselves. My argument for a student coach, is allowing a student to learn all of those things you do as an adult coach. Imagine, if we could get a group of students to look at a match they lost because of one person making a call, but yet be there to support each other. If those exact skills you mentioned were to be learned by a student....how powerful would that be?

At the end of the day, and this is where many may disagree, it's about what is learnt and not about who wins. If my team were to lose a quarterfinal match and come back to me, talked it out in front of me, what went wrong, what each other needs to do, go in for a team high five, and get back out there <- that's worth more than a million world championships.

You have an excellent point that is a strong argument in favor of student coaches. I just want to add that mentor coaches are not always at the expense of students learning. In some cases, students learn and grow more from working with an experienced mentor coach than they do with a peer. We don't really use an adult coach to get a competitive advantage - we use one to better inspire our kids within our particular team dynamic.

Basically, I get the idea from a lot of people (not really you, just reminded me of it) that student coaches are inherently more educational and mentor coaches are chosen for competitive reasons. I just want to provide an example to show that isn't always the case.