Coaches/Mentors on the Drive Team

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

A great way to create effective leaders is to give them examples of effective leadership. You don't get good machinists just by giving people opportunities to use a mill; you get good machinists by having them watch and work with good machinists. If you have a good adult leader acting as the drive coach, you can inspire very good leadership from the students.

So I have a story to tell. I'm not claiming it should change the minds of the rather-not-have-adults-coaching thinkers (is that an appropriate hyphenation?), but it might be valuable insight. I'll preface it by saying that there are some great student coaches out there. However, they're rare, rarer than adults, and I think there's a reason for that. As always though, YMMV:

I was a student driver with an adult coach for 3 years. I valued it for a lot of reasons, but one of the more important was that I got to work alongside an adult in a high-pressure situation. He didn't always take it well (neither did we), but I learned a lot--no, a lot--from it, as did my fellow drivers. I sincerely believe I couldn't have learned that anywhere else. At the very least, I know we didn't have student that could have taught us that.

After 2 years, I started coaching some off-seasons myself. I'd done a few my first post-season, but I wasn't very useful. So I learned, and I practiced, and I beat myself up for stupid stuff, and I observed my own coach. I managed to really coach some senior year, alright according to my drivers. I firmly believe there is no way I could have gotten to that level in that time--as a coach or as a person--without an adult coach with me behind the glass.

This isn't to say that alumni must make the best coaches, or that this process is optimal. Rather, my point is that a very important aspect of driver (and personal) growth and coach training for me was actually being coached by an adult. This is primarily because I think it takes quite a while to make most really learn from-able drive coaches. I say that based on 5 years behind the glass, but feel free to object.

So if I can pick a coach that can teach drivers something about handling the irreplaceable experience in the box, or help them grow in any way (and there are a lot), or help train a new coach...well, that sounds good to me, even if they are an adult.

TL;DR: There are some things you just can't inspire and/or teach from the other side of the glass. Many of these things can only be taught by adults. (There may be a few very rare students, but not to the point that every team would be expected to have them.)