[Mike Schreiber]

Over the past couple years in a large number of Dean's speaches we have heard him adress teams who are student run, no adult mentors. He says they're missing the point. FIRST is different than every other robotics competition because of the adult involvement, and that's what makes FIRST competitive and so educational. Adult engineers, teachers, and coaches are the reason this organization has succeeded, you can beg for the rule change and justify your argument (I do see where it's coming from), but quite frankly it's not going to happen. FIRST runs because of these people, they put the time in to inspire students, but how is it inspiring to watch your beautiful and elegant machine with the potential to dominate lose because of a strategic error that the students couldn't correct on their own, it's discouraging to the mentors and the students. I'm not saying the students can't coach, I'm saying the adults have more experience and can return year after year bringing back their knowledge.

However in offseason events I see an excellent way to test this idea. I know in the past at offseasons we've had student coached drive teams and switched up our drivers, the offseason is a learning experience and although it is competitive, not nearly as much is on the line. I coached at IRI in 2007 as a sophomore and had a blast, but to be honest I had no clue what I was doing and we would have done much better with an adult, we ended up dead last and not picked. Perhaps if I had more experience it would have gone better, but how can I get that experience if I only have 4 years (if even that because few teams would give drive coach to a freshman).

If it was possible for a high school student to have the experience Paul Copioli does and to make plays like he does, I'd be all for student coaches. But, in my opinion, it would be a large hinderance to a majority of teams who currently use an adult.