[archiver]

Posted by Andy Baker at 04/12/2001 1:52 PM EST


Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.


In Reply to: No more adult coaches
Posted by julia walsh on 04/12/2001 8:02 AM EST:



It's too bad that some adult coaches make things bad for the rest of us. I agree, there were a few disrespectful and untruthful adult coaches out there, but the majority of the coaches are good to work with, in my opinion.

I had the honor to be the on-field coach and head negotiator for our team (45).

I disagree with the motion to restrict "adults" from being coaches on the field for numerous reasons:

1. From what I recall, FIRST has always said that they want adult coaches on the field. They want to have some engineers in the spotlight, so that kids can recognize these people as positive role models.

2. At least one adult needs to be out there to accept resposibility of all actions of the drive team on the field. For our team, all drive team decisions were filtered through me, so if anything went wrong, the buck stopped there. That way, I can keep other people (team members, corporate staff, school administration) off our kids backs.

3. Of all of the difficult times that we had with other teams during the pre-match meeting, most of them were with student coaches. Although there were some exceptions, students were not prepared to quickly organize the match to get the job done. If a student was organized enough to do this, then they ran the floor. If they simply yelled louder than the rest of us, then they were tactfully told to listen to the rest of the alliance.

4. Believe it or not, this competition is not just about the students. You can say that, but it's not really true. Too many adults put in too many hours to let a team's destiny be in the hands of some under-prepared students. I mean no disrespect to students... there were some darn good student coaches out there this year... they were just in the minority.

5. Another good thing about having adult coaches out there is having continuity from year to year. I think that the main reason that the Midwest Regionals had higher scores is that many of the coaches on the field know each other well enough that the negotiations usually went smooth.

If FIRST would've let us have MORE time to plan the match, then having student coaches would've been fine. This "pre-match negotiation" process was the toughest part of this year's game, and it was not fun. Sometimes, I found it not enjoyable at all... but it had to be done in order to play the game at a competitive level.

Andy B.