Training for Drive Coaches

[Josh Goodman]

Chris that is very true. My Freshman year, I took over the role of head scout in Atlanta and then started coaching my sophomore year. Scouting and Coaching are very similar in many ways.

I student coached my team for the past three years and even though it may be regurgitation of other's comments, I would have to say for a sound coach, practice on the field and in competitions is number one. No matter what you do, no coach will be a pro after their first year. A lot of what helped shape me as a coach during my rookie years was experience coaching along side veteren/pro coaches like Ken Patton, JVN, and Jason Rees (to name just a few). Each year I did it I got more confident at the job until the point where the duties and tasks and strategies and what not have been driven into me. But I'll give my list so you hopefully have a good Rookie coach this year. You will see a lot of my comments are not how to train the coach after he is selected so to speak but how to choose the right one so that the training is easier.

1) Promote competition when trying to earn the position of coach in build season. If there are multiple students interested, they will try and prove to you why they deserve to be coach. I remember my sophomore year, I kept playing the "Rack N' Roll Simulator" Game against fellow wannabe coaches. This kept me on my toes, gave me more strategy ideas and was a lot of fun to.

2) Make a Game Quiz. For 1511, our entire team needs to take a quiz on the current game. I would suggest making a short quiz (maybe 20-30 questions) directly out of the rule book (NO OPEN NOTES) and have everyone that wants to be coach get a 100% on the quiz. This guarantees they know the rules inside and out.

3) When choosing a drive team, one of the most important things to include is team chemistry. Sometimes there will be a really good cohesive driver and co-driver, but when you throw a certain coach in there, nothing really blends. It's your call, but I know we have found more success when there was already a good bond between the members. Drama on the drive team is the last thing ANYONE wants.

4) Make sure the coach can command the respect of his drivers. This directly ties into the statement #3. As much as I hate to use this analogy, the drivers are tools. They need to listen to their coach no matter what their belief. If the coach says "go pick this up" and the driver spends time to argue, that isn't a good mix.

5) Finally, do lots of practicing with different team combinations. If the robot is already shipped (Hopefully you've picked your coach before that point), you can even do this with other robots from previous years.

Now, being a week 1 regional it's very hard to get in a lot of training but here's what I would suggest.

1) Go over strategies with your drive team, if you have a completed robot, test them out with it. Also, test them out again when you get to the competition on the practice fields.

2) Read the rules and all updates. A lot. Seriously. Do it.

3) After each match during the competition, go over what went well, what didn't, what you can do next time to fix it.

And my advice to whoever you happen to pick: Be Confident, Be smart, Be Assertive, Be Enthusiastic, Be a Leader, and Be Yourself. I think you will find your first regional as the biggest training help ever. Although you may not get the best record (my team went 3-8 at my first regional coaching), it is invaluable to get behind that driver station and start that training. You WILL get better at it over the year and years to come. Good Luck!