Adults as Coaches on the field

[SushaK]

i actually like this rule. on 461 we always have mentors as drive coaches and no student can even try to be a drive coach. and to be honest although adult coaches do have more experience, student coaches can always bring new ideas and ways to accomplish tasks. also, every year the game changes so no matter how much experience someone has they are never quite prepared for what's really out on the field. i say give students a chance!!!

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

I really did not want to post in this thread until I saw this. I do not understand how you evaluate the skill of a coach based on their age. I honestly don't. If a student has been coaching on their team for 3 years, and an adult has been coaching on another team for 3 years, do they not have the same exact experience and a "level" field?

This.

Leadership/coaching ability/maturity do not depend on age. It's quite possible for a 17-year-old to have those qualities while a 27-year-old does not. And in that sort of case, I'll go with the 17-year-old every time, but if the opposite is true, then I'll go the opposite way.

What would I look for in a coach? Experience, maturity, leadership, calmness under pressure, and some strategic knowledge. Anyone who has those should be able to coach, no matter whether they're a retired engineer, a high school student, an actively working mentor, or a 10-year-old kid (who, incidentally, under FRC rules, could drive or coach).

[Jon Jack]

Isn't this dead horse beat enough, already? How many of these threads do we have to have every year?

Yes I'm a 'adult coach', but I was also a coach as a student so I have seen things from both sides of the argument. Bottom line is that each team is going to do things their way. Just because a coach is an adult doesn't immediately give a team a competitive advantage, just like having a student coach doesn't put them at a disadvantage. If you look the best (and successful) adult coaches, they are effective communicators and role models for students to follow. Having been a coach at 10 events, I can say that the best coaches are the ones who can effectively communicate and work with their alliance partners.

Want proof? Look at the correlation between WFA/WFFA winners and success on the field (excuse and misspelled names!):

Paul Copioli (217) - WFA, 2 World Championships, 1 World Finalist In 4 Years
JVN (229/148) - WFFA, 1 World Championship
Karthik (1114) - WFFA
Derek Bessette (1114) - WFFA, 1 World Championship, 9 Regional Championships In 4 Years
Travis Covington (968) - 1 World Finalist, 2 Einstein Appearances In 3 Years
Raul Olivera (111) - WFFA, 2 World Championships
Matt Driggs (330) - WFFA, 1 World Championship, 4 Regional Championships, 1 Regional Finalist
Jim Zondag (33) - WFFA
Lucien Junkin (118) - WFFA
Andy Baker (45)- WFA
Ken Patton (65) - WFA
Dave Verbruge (67) - WFA
Kyle Huges (27) - WFA
Andy Bradley (233) - WFFA, 2 Einstein Appearances In 3 Years
Steve Kyramarios (254) - WFFA, Never Finished Worse Than Finalist At A Regional

This list goes on... but we can all agree that WFFA/WFA winners are some of the best role models in FIRST and people we want students to be around. By saying that adults shouldn't be coaching is like saying that you don't want your students working with these great role models. Often times students that get to work with these people are inspired to become better engineers, better role models, better leaders and even go on to coach teams as a mentor.

I know that when I was a student coach, I was inspired by people like Paul Copioli, Matt Driggs and Travis Covington to go on and be a coach after high school. I've taken many lessons I've learned from the people on the list above and used them as guidelines for how to be a better coach and more importantly a better mentor. The WFFA that I won this year is a sign that what I've learned from these great people has moved my students enough to write a phenomenal essay about my impact on them.

[NorviewsVeteran]

Its starting to sound like the Blue Collar Comedy Tour's "I Believe" sessions, so I will say this:

I belieeeve: that if you are making a decision between a student coach or an adult coach, you are making the wrong decision. You should take in to consideration who you are putting on to the field, not what. And what Jon said.

[nlknauss]

To quickly add to the value of "adult coaches"...

In my experience as a student driver, students are able to see adult mentors model good networking/collaboration techniques with other people that they met a moment before hand. Certainly something we want all of our students to develop as a part of this experience to add to their toolbox. I think that is one of the characteristics of all the WFFAs and WFAs above and absolutely a value I try to emulate as an adult coach now.

Remember, the value of mentors in FIRST is immeasurable.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by OScubed

On our team our adult mentors stay where they belong - on the sidelines. es that bear the responsibility.

Please cite me something, anything, from FIRST that says mentors "belong on the sidelines" or anything to that effect. This is simply a fallacy.

Teams may OPT for their adult mentors to guide from "the sidelines," and it is a perfectly acceptable strategy. But other teams find a different method, with more involved mentors, suits them better. Just because you prefer your mentors to have a more hands-off approach doesn't mean mentors "belong on the sidelines."

Originally Posted by OScubed

By placing an adult mentor in the coaching role on the field you are depriving a student of the experience. Our best and most dedicated team members have come into their own in a leadership role through being coaches.

And by placing a student on the drive team, you're denying three other students on your team and many more on other teams the experience of working with a (hopefully gifted and inspirational) mentor. It works both ways.


I'm all for both student and adult coaches. It depends on the needs and wishes of your team, and what works best for you. I've spelled out my opinions and individual factors in several other threads about this topic, and I've coached both as a student and as a college mentor. The one thing I do feel important is chemistry, and making sure the drivers and coaches have time to work together before going onto the field (and even from year to year) in order to figure out how to best work with each other.

[Chris is me]

And by placing a student on the drive team, you're denying three other students on your team and many more on other teams the experience of working with a (hopefully gifted and inspirational) mentor. It works both ways.

On the contrary, would depriving the three students of direct involvement with that mentor for those matches have any sway on whether or not they are inspired to pursue science and engineering careers and challenges?

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

On the contrary, would depriving the three students of direct involvement with that mentor for those matches have any sway on whether or not they are inspired to pursue science and engineering careers and challenges?

In some cases, absolutely.

I've worked with and known students who definitely never would have pursued science and engineering careers, let alone graduated high school if it wasn't for the guiding influence of their field coaches.
---

*/Aside/*
Each team needs to do what's best for their situation. It's is a tad bit frustrating that we keep having these threads, where certain people/teams feel the need to tell other teams what they're supposedly depriving their students of. If you don't want to have a certain type of coach for your team, that's fine. But there's really no need to get on a high horse and lambaste others in a completely condescending fashion.

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by OScubed

On our team our adult mentors stay where they belong - on the sidelines. As you rightly pointed out - this is a student experience.

By placing an adult mentor in the coaching role on the field you are depriving a student of the experience.

where they belong? were they on the sidelines at any other portion of the build? if not then why would this be an exception to the rest of the build period?

did they get less of an experience building the robot because of the involvement of mentors? it seems what is lost somewhere is that this is not a program where the student are on their own all the time.....it is meant to have mentor involvement, for "Inspiration".....

did you miss dave's speech during the kickoff about what separates this from other similar competitions?

[AdamHeard]

As a student, i preferred working with the best, not working while the best watch from a distance.

I didn't get inspired watching my peers and I, I was inspired watching professionals.

[Taylor]

One thing that struck me in the OP is who instigated the change. It appears to me that your team is more student-centered along the spectrum; I think the adult/student coach decision should be made by the students in your case, and I think it should be made for the right reasons - because it would better serve your team and its values/goals, not because "the good teams do it."
You can try alternate coaches at offseason events (IRI, CAGE Match) to see how they work out; then you can make an informed decision come Regional season.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

As a student, i preferred working with the best, not working while the best watch from a distance.

"The post you are spotlighting already has spotlights."

I didn't get inspired watching my peers and I, I was inspired watching professionals.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to AdamHeard again."

[EricLeifermann]

I really hate to say it but all these topics about

"the way we do it is the right way"

and

"you can't do it that way if you really want to inspire your kids"

is starting to remind me of people arguing about politics and religion. It isn't going to get you anywhere. Let people believe what they want to believe and let teams do what they want to do.

I don't think teams who have an adult or teams who have students coach are really missing out on anything. If they have a way they like to run things who are all of you to say they can't?

[Chris is me]

I didn't mean to imply that the method I prefer is the only way to inspire people, but that the question of whether an adult coach or a student coach will inspire more (4 inspired versus 3 more heavily inspired) is itself debatable, as is the issue at hand.

I don't think there's anything wrong with healthy debate on the issue at hand. That is, until people start saying that their way is the best and people start taking subtle or not so subtle shots at teams that do it differently.

This is pretty much going to end the same way every single "mentor built" thread is, huh? You'd think FIRST actually encouraging both students and adults to both be field coaches would be a hint that both is the right answer.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

You'd think FIRST actually encouraging both students and adults to both be field coaches would be a hint that both is the right answer.

There's a lot of weight of responsibility that goes with making decisions for FRC teams that are sincerely trying to achieve the goals and mission of FIRST. The responsibilities include teams making their own decisions regarding how they run things and how they are going to achieve success. They are given homework and they are provided guidelines. They are also encouraged to submit Chairmans, videos, business plans. Those reflect how the team has structured itself and how it is implementing methods and ways of sustaining itself and accomplishing the goals it has set.

Maturity on the parts of the mentors, students, and the team, itself - would go a long way in carrying the weight of the responsibility well. By doing that, FIRST removes itself from the position of micro-managing and helicopter parenting, allowing for freedom to explore, create, innovate, and have some good hard fun. Coaching is a part of that.