[Shu Song]

When I first read the title of this thread, I thought that you would be weighing the benefits of FIRST mentorship and your own goals (one will most definitely impede upon the other). But to consider not mentoring because the students will potentially not respect you is ridiculous, unless of course you are so unsure of your abilities to lead and inspire that the kids will dislike you.

It doesn't make any sense to me why the students being mentored would not appreciate what you are doing for them. You volunteer your free time and energy to help these kids out, to give them what you had. Unless there is something you're not telling us, there should be no reason for the team not to respect you.

I plan to mentor the team next year while I'm at college. There will be a drastic change in my relationship to most of the kids on the team. I'm sure that given time, they will respect me just as much as any other adult mentor on the team.

My advice? Mentor the team only if you have the time and energy to do so, don't contemplate how you would be received by the students. In the end, the students will always learn to respect and appreciate what you did for them.