Mentors as Drive Coaches?

[Will Andrews]

As a member of FIRST Team 1218 for the past four seasons and our driver for the last two, the experience that I have had with FIRST has inspired me to pursue a career as an engineer. This program has gripped me like no other activity I've been involved with because being on the drive team has given me a chance to see the benefits of the long hours spent in the build season. Being a member of the drive team for two seasons has made me feel an enormous sense of responsibility for the success of the team and driven me to higher levels of dedication than my first two years.
This experience makes me wonder, why is it that mentors are allowed to act as coaches on the drive team? One of the biggest problems faced by teams is the limitation on the number of kids that are able to take a role in actually controlling the robot in competition and it seems like allowing mentors to fill the position runs the risk of displacing kids that would otherwise be able to get the full FIRST experience. This is not an attack on teams that use mentors as coaches but rather an attempt to understand the logic behind this exception.