FAHA: Adult Coach on Drive Team

[Bharat Nain]

This FIRST-a-holic's viewpoint is that adults should not be a part of the drive team as coaches. Does your drive team consist of an adult? What are your reasons?

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As one of the volunteers at the Michigan Districts, I got an up close look at the different drive team participants. While some of the teams use students as the drive team mentors. Most still use adults as the drive team mentors.

I'm curious, is your drive team mentor a student or an adult and why?

I'm a firm believer that there should be NO ADULTS on the drive team. I believe that each team has at least one mature student (we can find 2 each year) that can lead the team on the competition floor. An adult mentor should be used to mentor the drive team student mentor but should stay in the background. This is another opportunity for a student to learn skills that will be useful in the business world.

I believe that it is time for FIRST to change this rule. Most teams will need to be forced into letting the students take on this important role. The adult drive team mentor is the same as letting the baseball coach be the pitcher or the football coach be the quarterback. It's time to let your robot team mature and use students as drive team mentors.

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[Akash Rastogi]

Our team has determined that whoever can come up with the best and most effective strategies is the person who should be the coach. It just so happens that each year our students are better at that than the mentors.

The adult might be better suited under pressure. The student might be. Regardless, if the team believes that the guidance of the students in FIRST is carried out onto the field, then by all means the adults should be the coaches.

[Alan Anderson]

Our team's students have typically decided in the past few years that one of our explicit goals is to win competitions. It turns out that we have a highly experienced adult mentor with a good sense of strategy who commands respect on the field as a drive coach. Not to take advantage of that resource would reduce our competitiveness.

In some years, the team has had a strong goal of being very student-focused, and we have had a student coach. It depends on what the team wants to get out of the experience.

[Logan Byers]

Team 461 has used an adult mentor as drive coach since I can remember (2003). We have used a student coach once, for fun, at IRI in 2006.
In addition, most (if not all) of our coaches have also had previous experience as FIRST drivers/operators. Part of FIRST is learning from the professionals (our team mentors and engineers), and who better to learn from on the field than those with previous on-the-field experience.

[kramarczyk]

The adult drive team mentor is the same as letting the baseball coach be the pitcher or the football coach be the quarterback.

Actually, since the coach can't touch field pieces or controls, FRC coaching is just like baseball and football. Not being allowed on the field is like coaching from the locker room with no infleunce on the evolving game.

The rules allow you to use your most qualified person for the job and I don't see why this is a bad thing, nor do I see why you would impose an additional constrant on that.

[Francis-134]

There is no reason to not allow adult coaches onto the field. If the idea is to give students another chance to gain experience and become leaders, then that is fine. However, I believe it should be up to the team if a student could be best served being a coach or holding some other position. I find that being in charge of the pit, the scouting, or anything else going on at an event is much more important and a student can learn much more than from just being the drive coach.

One would assume that an adult coach has more experience and expertise than a student coach (if this is not the case, then the argument is not longer adult/student, but who is fit for the job). If a team is intending to do well, this experience can help tremendously and should not be wasted.

In the original post, the FIRST-aholic mentioned that they are able to find suitable student coaches every year, which is excellent. Not every team is blessed with such a gift. I have met many students who could have been great coaches, but simply wanted to be in the pit working on the robot, in the stands scouting or be a driver/operator/HP themselves.

From what I have seen, there have been no problems with adult coaches in FIRST. This my be my New Hampshire attitude, but why place unnecessary rules on something that just doesn't need them. If a particular team has an issue with adult coaches, they should be sure not to use them and let the other teams run their organization they way they want.

[gburlison]

As much as possible, our team is student led. With about 40 students on the team, we feel getting as many students involved on the drive team is one of the ways we inspire our students. Each year we have many qualified students and the coach position allows for more student participation on the drive team. We have used student coaches for the last 5 years. The only problems I have seen is some of the adult coaches on an alliance may not take our student coach seriously. One of the qualities that we look for in a student coach is the confidence to speak up and lead, not just our team, but an alliance if necessary.

[Travis Hoffman]

I believe that it is time for FIRST to change this rule. Most teams will need to be forced into letting the students take on this important role. The adult drive team mentor is the same as letting the baseball coach be the pitcher or the football coach be the quarterback. It's time to let your robot team mature and use students as drive team mentors.

No, the adult drive team COACH is the same as letting the "baseball COACH" be......the baseball COACH. How many "player-managers" do you see in high school athletics? Not many, if at all.

Adult mentors often are able to teach some of the most poignant lessons in communication, teamwork, patience, honesty, organization, and efficiency from their position as drive team coach. If a team is fortunate enough to have a student who possesses these qualities, then by all means, they may *choose* to employ that person in that role. There are notable teams who have done this, with great success. Otherwise, do not *force* teams to shoehorn student resources into roles they are not yet equipped to assume.

Many students do eventually develop into great drive team *mentors*......once they graduate from high school, and only after soaking in the experience of working with so many effective *adult* drive coaches throughout their student experience. I doubt they would become so effective had they only ever worked with student drive coaches during their careers.

Besides, would YOU like to be the one to tell Raul Olivera, Andy Baker, Paul Copioli, JVN, Adam Freeman, Brian Beatty, etc. they're "retired" and must now pass on their leadership and guidance through a "middleman"? Good luck with that.

[smurfgirl]

Oh dear... the "adult vs. student" coach argument comes up a lot. Most people are pretty set in their beliefs and this discussion often ends up getting angry, but it is nice to see the benefits of both. I am a firm believer that both options can work well, and that neither is "right". One may work better given the dynamics of one team, while another team might find the other option.

I come from a team which has always been student coached. I was the student coach or one of the student coaches (the multiple drive teams argument is for a different day ) for all three years that I was a student member of my team. My team's initial thought, back in the day, was to allow students to coach because we wanted to be very student-run, and to empower the students to be leaders by allowing them many opportunities to be in control of what was going on around them. Whether or not you think this was a good reason for them starting this, it has become tradition for us and has stuck with the team since then. Having been the student coach, I have definitely seen benefits. It allows for a different type of drive-team chemistry and close-knit bonds, because it is all students working together. I really like this about it. It does empower the students and foster additional team-building skills, self-confidence, etc. As a student coach, I also interacted with the other teams not just to strategize before our matches, and check out other robot designs, but I also talked to the same people about alliance pairings. This made that job so much easier because the bonds were already there... and I enjoyed networking and meeting all those new people. I learned a lot from our previous coach, who was fantastic. I also had somewhat of a knack for strategy to begin with (as did he). Because we were competent strategically, our lack of experience compared to some adult coaches was not necessarily apparent. However, if a team has a student coach who isn't strategizing or leading or interacting well, maybe it's not the right option for them. For our team, having a student coach worked really well and was terrific.

For other teams, an adult coach is definitely the way to go. It is not "cheating" by any means, and I don't know why anyone would consider it such. Adult coaches are role models and very inspirational. There are many adult coaches on other teams that I look up to, and I know that the students on their teams value them and admire them even more than I do. Having a figure like this on a team, or at a competition for other teams to meet, is also important. Also, adult coaches bring some other valuable assets to a drive team. They are often much more experienced than student coaches, having been involved in FIRST for a long time. They have seen more on the field, and may have a better feel for strategy with interesting tricks up their sleeves. They are an authority figure, and should be representing the team well, acting with dignity, and garnering respect. They are probably better able to handle many tough situations, and can express themselves carefully. Not to say that student coaches can't have these attributes, or that all adult coaches are perfect either, but in general these traits are found far more often in adult coaches.

I think we need a mix of both student and adult coaches on teams. They both bring value to the program. While student coaching was great, I don't think my experience would have been the same without adult coaches as role models. I aspire to be one of these "rock stars" of the program one day... and having that sort of positive, I-want-to-inspire-people attitude has made me a better person. Teams should choose whichever coach works for them the best, and leave other teams alone to do the same without judging them or ruling their choice of coach unfair. These interesting situations like the coach question are all part of what makes FIRST interesting.

[JaneYoung]

To remove the adult coaches from the positions across the board, would weaken FRC, not only in the competition, but in general. There is a depth of wisdom that brings added dimension, skill level, and respect to FRC because of this aspect of it. A very important part of the FRC competition is to expose high school students to the skills and knowledge of professionals. If you remove the adult coaches from the field, then you are basically building a ship without a rudder. Each FRC team decides how it will build itself, how it can best showcase its strengths and talents, and how it can compete successfully. If that decision is removed from the team by a mandate from FIRST, then the ship will sink in harbor without having a chance to find the horizon on its own power.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Each FRC team decides how it will build itself, how it can best showcase its strengths and talents, and how it can compete successfully.

Then why can't an FRC team choose to have adult drivers?

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Then why can't an FRC team choose to have adult drivers?

The position of coach is an opportunity for coaching, as stated. In my opinion, if teams chose to have an adult coach, this presents further opportunity for a mentoring partnership to continue. If the drive team is comprised of adults, then that changes the partnership, placing the students on the sideline as observers. Working partnerships are much different than being sidelined and removed from the drive team, forcing the student into the role of no more than a fan of the adults.

[Mike Schreiber]

Over the past couple years in a large number of Dean's speaches we have heard him adress teams who are student run, no adult mentors. He says they're missing the point. FIRST is different than every other robotics competition because of the adult involvement, and that's what makes FIRST competitive and so educational. Adult engineers, teachers, and coaches are the reason this organization has succeeded, you can beg for the rule change and justify your argument (I do see where it's coming from), but quite frankly it's not going to happen. FIRST runs because of these people, they put the time in to inspire students, but how is it inspiring to watch your beautiful and elegant machine with the potential to dominate lose because of a strategic error that the students couldn't correct on their own, it's discouraging to the mentors and the students. I'm not saying the students can't coach, I'm saying the adults have more experience and can return year after year bringing back their knowledge.

However in offseason events I see an excellent way to test this idea. I know in the past at offseasons we've had student coached drive teams and switched up our drivers, the offseason is a learning experience and although it is competitive, not nearly as much is on the line. I coached at IRI in 2007 as a sophomore and had a blast, but to be honest I had no clue what I was doing and we would have done much better with an adult, we ended up dead last and not picked. Perhaps if I had more experience it would have gone better, but how can I get that experience if I only have 4 years (if even that because few teams would give drive coach to a freshman).

If it was possible for a high school student to have the experience Paul Copioli does and to make plays like he does, I'd be all for student coaches. But, in my opinion, it would be a large hinderance to a majority of teams who currently use an adult.

[Lil' Lavery]

I'm going to quote this post from this thread (on the same topic).

Originally Posted by Ken Patton

I'm dredging up this thread because I just had an experience that I think relates to why I am in favor of adult FRC coaches. Sorry in advance for the long post.

When you coach FRC, you get to meet a lot of people. And lots of times, its more than just a casual, shake their hands, nod your head, see ya next year kind of thing. You are fellow competitors, sharing some intense moments as allies or opponents, and mutual respect and friendships sometimes develop. Students who know their coaches well sometimes get to know other coaches well.

Recently, a student who was mentored by some FRC friends of mine contacted me and asked some (imo) really important questions related to his education/future. I'm honored that this guy would come to me - I consider him to be a totally on-the-ball guy, and a future success. I met his dad in the stands while scouting a few years ago, and I know he has fantastic support in his life. So its not like he doesn't get good advice from his other people.

But he had questions that I'm probably pretty well-suited to answer. And because we know each other well, its a natural thing for him to ask me questions like this (he was asking about the merits of UniversityA versus UniversityB in the eyes of a potential employer). Heres the PM that I sent him (some info redacted to protect privacy):

Hi _____-

I would say that some, including me (and I hire a couple of mechanical engineers per year), would put a little more strength on the UniversityA degree. You have to remember though that I am not super-well-familiar with __ schools, so I am not going on a lot of info here. Someone with more insight from your state might have a different opinion.

In the end, if you had a good resume - and I expect you will - I think your grades at UniversityB, your experiences in FRC, jobs you have had, and any academic-related experiences (assisting professors on something, student competitions like FSAE or Mini-Baja, student associations such as SAE) you have had, will have a weight that is similar to the UniversityA vs. UniversityB weight. So there is no doubt that you can get an employer's attention at either school.

I hope that gives you some insight.

If you ever need someone to review a resume, serve as a reference, etc, count me in. Although you have some great ___ers who know you better than I do....

See ya,
Ken


I think the above example is a good reason why adult coaches are good for FRC. And I know, you don't have to be a coach to be in a position to develop these sorts of relationships... but I would not have met this young man if I had not been a coach, and if his team coach/mentors were not adults who became friends through the competitive FRC world (and also through CD! Thanks Brandon!).

I'm lucky to know him, someday I might even be lucky enough to interview or hire him when he "turns pro."

Ken

[Karthik]

This exact discussion comes up often on these forums. I recommend that everyone takes a look a thread from about a year ago:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=67426

There are some GREAT posts in here that shed a lot of light on the issue. Pay special attention to the posts by Ken Patton, JVN, Rick Tyler, Kate Mosley, Tom Bottiglieri, Andy Baker. Oh yeah, here's what I said:

Originally Posted by Karthik

Some assorted thoughts.

Team 1114 has used an exclusively used an adult coach since 2004, and will continue to do so in the future. Having an adult coach provides our driveteam an unique opportunity to learn and be inspired by industry professionals in the highest paced of environments. In addition, it gives our team the possible chance of success. One of the core values on Simbotics is that winning is a fun and inspirational experience.

Part of FIRST's mission is to help create science and technology heroes. The students of 1114 have many heroes within FIRST, many of whom are adult field coaches of other teams. Our kids get ridiculously excited at even the thought of working with coaches like Raul Olivera, Brian Beatty or Ken Patton. This year in Atlanta, we were fortunate enough to be paired with 217 and 148, coached by Paul Copioli and JVN. The kids are still talking about what an amazing and interesting experience it was to work with these two. These adult coaches are the "rock stars" of our program, and I know on Simbotics the kids really do look up to and aspire to be a great as these coaches.

When it comes to alliance selection, Team 1114 puts a huge emphasis on coaching. We are much more likely to pick a team who has a coach who has a commanding presence in the box, and has been a proven winner through out the years. We have made picks based on this rationale and have never regretted it.