[Kit Gerhart]

One thing that is mostly missing from this discussion is that, since mentors are not allowed to be drivers or human players, the only position where adults can be "where the action is," is as a coach. There are mentors who contribute more "blood, sweat, and tears" to their team than most of the students, and who want to be where the action is. In the early part of my FIRST career, I was definitely one of those people. Now that I have had my chance, including being a coach when we won the the championship in 1998, I have less desire to be out on the field. Still, if I had never had that opportunity, I'm not sure I'd still be so active in FIRST. If a team has no mentors who have the desire, and skills to be a good coach, it makes sense in every way to use a student coach. If there are adults who contribute a lot to the team and have the skills to be a good coach, IMHO, they should have that opportunity.

The bottom line is that the purpose of FIRST is to inspire students. I suspect that the students of Team 71 have been inspired as they have won their 4 Championships with Brian Beatty as coach. I could use any number of other examples, but I feel that teams using adult coaches can inspire students as well as teams with student coaches, and that is what FIRST is all about.