Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber
As an alumni I went to a different team. Once there I and another alumni (from that team) both mentored in very similar portions. The problem became that one of us was a mentor the other was still an older student. With me things were much more a mentor-student role, with my colleague it was a more student to student role.
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I agree completely. I think there are two main reasons that an alumni stays in the student-student role with their previous team:
A. The person wants to continue the same feeling that they had when they were a student on the team. They come back to hang out and still want to have the same level of interaction with their friends and former team mates.
B. The alum wants to mentor and the students don't 'let' them. Most of this is because the remaining team members see that person as a peer and not as a mentor.
My suggestions:
- Start out the season by announcing to everyone (students, parents, other mentors, etc.) that this person is now a mentor and will be treated as such.
- Putting that person in situations where they cant revert back to student impulses (ie. if they chaperon a room they supervise freshmen and not upperclassmen they worked with as a student)
- Have an older mentor show them the ropes (even mentors need lessons)
After 2 years as a student I came back to my old team and have mentored the past 4 years. This year will be my first as a coach... I'm nervous but everyone has a first day sometime.
