[mathking]

This news has caused me to do some serious thinking about the direction of our program. I was one of three teachers who founded 1014 back in 2003, but the other two had to drop out after the first year. (Though one of them graciously came back to help chaperone our 2004 and 2005 regional and championship trips.) It took a lot of work. The team might have folded in the third or fourth year if my athletic director had not volunteered to cover some of the meeting for me, giving me back a little bit of time with my family. I was also lucky to have some really good Ohio State engineering students to help mentor. As the team grew (from not quite 20 students to now consistently in the 60s or 70s) we also picked up more mentor support. For the last eight years I have had at least one (and now two) other teachers to help.

Through all of that, one of the things I have been most concerned about is keeping the team from dying when I step back. I don't want the program to be about me. I don't want it to be "my program." I want it to be the team that the school (or in our case the school district, since all three high schools share a team) has. I want it to be just like the football team or the band. When the teacher leading it resigns they get someone else to do the job. Thanks to the painstaking efforts of one of our school board members there is now a small stipend which the teachers split. It is not a lot of money, but the fact that there is a stipend is important because it means that when I resign there will be a position to fill.

I am one of the founders of the Central Ohio Robotics Initiative, which is a group of local business leaders and educators pushing to expand the reach of FIRST so that every kid has an opportunity to participate. My personal goal is to win an Ohio Capital Conference (our athletic conference) title in Robotics before I retire. We have 7 teams at schools in the conference so far (actually representing 14 of the 32 high schools) so I don't think it is out of reach. I want this because that would mean that FRC has become something that every (or at least almost every) school does. FRC competition is relatively expensive, but when you compare its cost to other sports it is actually pretty typical. And it is the most transformative activity I have ever done. Just to be clear, I also coach cross country and track & field, and I am a big believer in the importance of sports teams, music programs, theater programs and all kinds of other extra and co-curricular activities. I am NOT saying FRC is better, just that I want to get to a point where having a team becomes the norm.

So in my rambling way, I am saying that this discussion is making me think about the future. I want to insure that the program survives when I am no longer running it. In my career I have taken over teaching and coaching for some long time, highly successful (and locally legendary) teachers and coaches. Each time they gave me the advice to lead the program the way I think it should go. And not to worry if I think changes are needed. I want to make sure that when I pass the torch team 1014 won't miss a beat.