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Originally Posted by ngreen
Student coaching is bad??! And rookies are bad??!
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I would say in general, rookies are poor partners.
I feel the flames already coming... however, let me do some explaining. There are exceptions... but read on.
FIRST has been around for so long, that most the exceptional "rookie" teams aren't really rookies in the traditional sense. As many people would agree, there's an exponential improvement during the first 2 or 3 years that a team is in place, and I would say that many of the best "rookie" teams out there are not completely oblivious to what FIRST is about. Having 1 or 2 people with FIRST experience makes a world of difference to the "rookie" team. In general, FIRST teams aren't as poor as the weakest link, but strong as the strongest members. Having a few FIRST experienced people on board can take literally years off the learning curve for teams. Having a handful of experienced team members can litterally take 500 - 800 off a rookie's team number.
Can we all admit that many of us had a lot of room for growth our rookie year? Those of you that had exceptional rookie years probably had one or two mentors in FIRST to start up your team...
there are obvious exceptions.
I'll throw a bone out there and say that experience (read: learning from past mistakes, knowledge of FIRST competitive history) is among the most deciding factor for competive (read: not necessarily most inspiring) teams.
Hence, I think we can be realistic and say it's
understandable, though not completely fair, to be slightly apprehensive to see that you're paired with team #3000 with 4 giggling freshmen prancing over to be your partners and alliance coach.
Matt