[Jon Jack]

Isn't this dead horse beat enough, already? How many of these threads do we have to have every year?

Yes I'm a 'adult coach', but I was also a coach as a student so I have seen things from both sides of the argument. Bottom line is that each team is going to do things their way. Just because a coach is an adult doesn't immediately give a team a competitive advantage, just like having a student coach doesn't put them at a disadvantage. If you look the best (and successful) adult coaches, they are effective communicators and role models for students to follow. Having been a coach at 10 events, I can say that the best coaches are the ones who can effectively communicate and work with their alliance partners.

Want proof? Look at the correlation between WFA/WFFA winners and success on the field (excuse and misspelled names!):

Paul Copioli (217) - WFA, 2 World Championships, 1 World Finalist In 4 Years
JVN (229/148) - WFFA, 1 World Championship
Karthik (1114) - WFFA
Derek Bessette (1114) - WFFA, 1 World Championship, 9 Regional Championships In 4 Years
Travis Covington (968) - 1 World Finalist, 2 Einstein Appearances In 3 Years
Raul Olivera (111) - WFFA, 2 World Championships
Matt Driggs (330) - WFFA, 1 World Championship, 4 Regional Championships, 1 Regional Finalist
Jim Zondag (33) - WFFA
Lucien Junkin (118) - WFFA
Andy Baker (45)- WFA
Ken Patton (65) - WFA
Dave Verbruge (67) - WFA
Kyle Huges (27) - WFA
Andy Bradley (233) - WFFA, 2 Einstein Appearances In 3 Years
Steve Kyramarios (254) - WFFA, Never Finished Worse Than Finalist At A Regional

This list goes on... but we can all agree that WFFA/WFA winners are some of the best role models in FIRST and people we want students to be around. By saying that adults shouldn't be coaching is like saying that you don't want your students working with these great role models. Often times students that get to work with these people are inspired to become better engineers, better role models, better leaders and even go on to coach teams as a mentor.

I know that when I was a student coach, I was inspired by people like Paul Copioli, Matt Driggs and Travis Covington to go on and be a coach after high school. I've taken many lessons I've learned from the people on the list above and used them as guidelines for how to be a better coach and more importantly a better mentor. The WFFA that I won this year is a sign that what I've learned from these great people has moved my students enough to write a phenomenal essay about my impact on them.