Drive Team Chemistry

[planetbrilliant]

Originally Posted by Vupa

Hello all,
Number one: Our drive team members have absolutely no chemistry together, they do not dislike each other, but for the most part are not friends. They simply seem to be on separate wavelengths, making communication more difficult.

Number two: The drivers are uncomfortable around the drive coach. This goes back to the lack of chemistry, the main driver often does not feel confident in the drive coach's decisions, but the operator who is fairly meek, becomes torn between two people telling her different things, this led to quite a few mishaps during the season.

Number three: For champs we switched out drive coach due to the issue present in number two. We found ourselves without anyone seemingly qualified to coach that will be around for several years. Personally I believe that having a drive coach is essential for communication and not having someone who can stay and learn from year to year is detrimental.

Number four: The operator is not seemingly competitive and becomes stressed easily affecting her overall performance. She also needs quite a bit of reinforcement and directions during matches. The main driver who is not the "directing" type does not pair evenly with the operator or the drive coach, leading to a lot of miscommunication.

Number five: When there are no other seemingly "qualified" members among the team for driver, but the current drive team chemistry does not work, is it better to choose the next best option or to continue with the current drivers. Assuming that practice has not started.

Our team had some similar issues with our drive team, so much that we shifted around our drive team numerous times trying to make things work (it didn't help that we had members who had to work/couldnt make it/etc). The best thing I would say to do is, when holding drive team tryouts, don't just look for the best in each individual role, look for the pair that is the best together. A team could have the best operator and best driver in the entire world but if they don't work together well there's no point.

When there are no other qualified members, I feel it would be better to have a compatible drive team with little experience than to have an incompatible drive team with experience. Especially if practice hasn't started, because then those inexperienced kids can get experience.