[mathking]

Well said Weberr. I tell people all the time that of all the subjects I have taught, sports I have coached and activities I have participated in, FRC is the most transformative for kids. A large part of the that is changing their level of technical skill and confidence. But the biggest single driver of that transformation is the relationships kids develop with their peers and mentors. The feeling of belonging and shared purpose is powerful. The robot is an absolutely essential means to that end, but it is still just the means.

A coaching friend of mine says this: "If you having your athletes work hard, learning and doing their best is not your primary motivation as a coach then you will spend a lot of your career unhappy." He says that in the context of doing well versus winning. It means that if you derive your satisfaction from winning, you are setting yourself up to be unhappy. Sometimes you perform really well, and still lose. Sometimes you don't perform well and you still win. Which won should make you happier? When we lose a match in which we played well, I know that my most important task is to build on what we did well. The kids need to see that even if I am unhappy that we lost I am more happy that they did well. Because I want them to be resilient and to be focused on doing their best.

It is way to easy to be consumed by the loss. Who among us hasn't seen at least one team lose a close match in FRC where they played really well and they walk away angry? Most of the time when I see this I see a mentor who is just as obviously (at least to me) upset at and focused on the loss.

If you as a mentor derive your satisfaction from winning, your students/athletes are going to realize that and internalize it. The same way they will if you derive your satisfaction from performing well, from the kids learning and having a positive experience, they will internalize that as well. Please remember this.

We strive to build the best robot we can. Some years we do a better job than others. On the average, the quality of our robots is improving. We are always trying to improve our technical skills and add new skills. We make eliminations most of the time, but we have never won a regional or an off-season event. We have been close, so tantalizingly close. But we have not won. While I really do want to win a competition, I certainly don't think our team has in any way been a failure. In terms of the number and quality of our students and the experiences they had I am quite confident we have done as good a job as many teams with more on the field success. Just as I am sure there are teams with less on the field success who have done at least as good job inspiring their students.