But I think it's going to be fun. Run totally by volunteers, teams form at schools or among friends, with one or more coaches guiding them as they tackle a problem in the area of their choice. With regional, state, national and world competitions looming in the spring, teams are already forming and getting to work on this year's problem. Meeting weekly for months, the coaches guide their charges and serve as a resource and motivator. They do not give answers but encourage students to think out of the box.
School is different, so often they have a specific goal in mind or a specific answer.
Here, their solutions to the same problem are often totally different. After 12 years of coaching 15 teams, Tina Allen finds that Odyssey of the Mind has gotten into her blood. Guiding her three daughters to competition year after year, she has found that people either love or hate being an Odyssey of the Mind coach. If they stay past the first year, she said, they are hooked. It's that working toward something, not just doing this to have fun but really working toward a finished product, that pulls you together and develops relationships that would not have developed in other ways.