Student Coaches

[CyberWolf_22]

Team 647 has had two students coaches for the past year (only one driver).
We have found that the students study the competition more then a lot of the mentors, interact with the other drive teams better then the mentors and also dance, which is a requirement to be on our drive team .

[Allison K]

I'm a mentor-alumni coach. It works out nicely, because I was the lead scout as a student, and the current lead scout was my apprentice, and still is one of my best friends, so we communicate rather well.

[AIBob]

Team 358, in previous years had mentor coaches, alternating between several mentors...
This year we have one student coach... and he is doing a great job of coaching!

[Richard Wallace]

Our team has a very green student coach again this year. It is a very strong tradition on 931 that all of our drive team members must maintain an extremely green appearance. Although some teachers and mentors have been mildly green, our green-ness pales in comparison to that of our students, who are among the greenest anywhere.

[pickle]

We have a mentor coach. For us I think thats better, so there are no hard feelings between students. We all love our mentor coach anyway, and he acts like a student anyway, so its all good

[Ali Ahmed]

We have a student coach. It used to be where the coach was anybody and they did not really do anything but stand there, it was kind of like a reward for hard-working students but last year I made it so that the coach, me, actually coached it is still goes on today.

[Keith Chester]

<~ 25's Drive coach. Last year too

[DarkJedi613]

We have a student coach - me. Every previous year we've had mentor coaches, but this year we decided to try something new and so far it seems to be working well.

Originally Posted by AIBob

Team 358, in previous years had mentor coaches, alternating between several mentors...
This year we have one student coach... and he is doing a great job of coaching!

Hey, didn't see you replied Bobby, thanks.

[cbolin]

Hi,
We use a student coach/team captain for Team 342. This allows us mentors to sit in the pit area during competition and just relax. :-) Watching the competition really gets our stomachs tied in knots.

Regards,
Chuck

[Lisa Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by Jon K

We currently have a student coach(me), but we have had in the past adult mentors coach. I honestly find I work better with other coaches who are students rather then mentors, because it is easier to talk to them then a mentor who could be intimidating etc. Also to me a student coach would be better from the stand point of the drivers, as they are also in the same peer group and allow for an easier time talking over strategies, and what kind of improvements can be made, on either my end or theirs. I have come across a few coaches who were mentors, that would just flat out not listen to a thing I have suggested, most likely because I am a student, and to me students just listen better to each other and accept each others plans and ideas better. Although we do have a drive team mentor who is a college member of the team(Ogre), and he does do strategy with us before matches etc, so we still do have an adult working with us. I just find that this is what works best with my team, and every team structure is different, so what is good for one might not work for others.

RAGE hasn't had an adult coach in 5 or 6 years....if not more. The adult think it'be better if students do it. We have many scouts that help, Ogre just collect the info and does more than most of the rest of them. Corey as well (formerly 571). I was coach last year, a perspective changing job. It's quite a change from all other views of the field. Congrats to all coaches, it's not an easy job!!

[Greg Needel]

this is a very interesting issue which i have had long debates about...this year 73 has a student coach, and 1511 has both (they alternate)

having been a coach both as a mentor and a student there are different things you have to keep in mind before you make the decision of who to put in there.

student advantages:

• more students on the field
• peers communicate better
• most of the time more creative at on the fly moves

student disadvantages

• students can get dominated by mentors in strategy sessions
• need to be able to think quick on the fly (this goes for mentors also)
• need to look at the whole picture instead of just the robot (i have found
• this particularly difficult for students mainly although i suppose that adults have the same problem)

mentor advantages

• more likely to stay cool and collected (not always the case but i wont say team numbers)
• gets mentors to have a change to "be in the thick of things"
• would be able to communicate better with other adult mentors
• will not get dominated in strategy discus sons

mentor disadvantages

• not necessarily good communication with the drive team (age difference)
• makes team look to have a mentor lead image
• reduces the number of students that can be on the field

overall i think that each team needs to weigh the options and make their own decision and there is no right and wrong. in my personal opinion i like to have a student out there but like to attend all the strategy sessions to make sure they don't get dominated by an adult. what it comes down to is who does the best job at getting the information to the drivers student or mentor you should put the best person out there.

[tiffany34990]

This year since our team is basically student lead we have a student coach up on the field, Scott. He's pretty good at what he does. We usually had mentors up on the field usually James but last year we tried out different mentors up there. Both can be good and bad. At times the mentors try to push their stragedy on the side this year but Scott does a good job in keeping things organized up there

[Mark Pettit]

We play it by ear from year to year.
If there is a student that can handle the pressure on the field, strategize well, and be able to make helpful and productive recommendations to the drive team, then we use him as the coach.
Our mentor staff is always well read on the rules of the game and strategy is our forte so we can always step in if the student is not working out.
Usually, the drive team is left to make the decision based upon who they're more comfortable with.
We've used both successfully.

[SlimsGirl]

I guess we pretty much have the best of both worlds too.

We have a young mentor-alumni coach who has done a great job coaching and being a role-model. Although he`s trusted by the entire team to make strategy calls, he decides to mostly rely on our student strategy lead to tell him what would work best. He welcomes any and all suggestions from the students.

Since he was in their shoes before, he knows what great ideas these young minds can come up with, as well as give guidance based on his own past experiences.

[Starke]

Our team started out with a mentor coach. However, after the first couple years of doing this, it was decided that a student coach would be more appropriate. This gives the students more chance to get involved. We have found that a student coach is better suited for our team.