Team Captains??

[riseball]

Half of the TB kids on our team have captains and the other don't. The kids say they can get out of line easy or have stuff going on that the coach does not know about. One said a captain could help them follow rules and expectations, instead of their sneaking around coach and him yelling and getting in their business all the time with wrong facts. (In this case, it was/is daddy ball.) IMO, if you want to reduce the snide behind the back stuff, captains can be a communication channel.

What if the captain is part of the problem or lacks the the trust and respect of the other players? Or worse yet only has the respect and trust of half of the players? Now the team is divided. Do you then fire the ineffective leader and install someone new in the hope they will be acceptable to all the players? Or do you devote time and effort to fixing it? What do you do if your most capable leader is a Sophomore or Freshman? How will the Seniors cope with subservience to an underclassman? Probably about as well as an underclassman who has no respect for a Senior. Then again if the coach is not effective at selecting captains and is one where she would yell and get in their business all the time, maybe the coach should be fired? From my experience more often than not the use of "captains" is a catalyst for chaos.

Seems much more effective to allow leaders to emerge over time and let a natural order occur rather than selecting a figure head based on mostly on seniority. That way if someone steps up into the role who it turns out is not well suited you can refocus their energies elsewhere while maintaining team morale.

 

[Little Angels Softball]

I have never named a team captain and never will.

Ironically, one seems to always emerge, though. No one ever calls her "captain" but everyone knows who she is and that she is their leader. They pick her without voting or ever thinking about it. And if you asked all 12 girls who their leader is, you'd get 11 giving you the same answer.

 

[Momo'sDad]

I could care less about titles. I don't worship kings/queens, nor do I encourage others to do so and would never tell an impressionable child it's what they should do.

Our HC and coaching staff don't endorse the queen bee mentality, so you won't see it around our program. That said, I have zero reservations about telling our veteran players that they've got a responsibility to BE THE EXAMPLE and show the new girls what's expected from members of the team. When they're doing it, you can sense everyone else giving that much more effort. We don't want anyone just going through the motions out there and sometimes have to use motivational techniques to get them to step it up. Of course we expect the same degree of effort from each player and coach, but when it begins to slip a bit, I personally expect the more experienced players to be the first to demonstrate a little leadership in picking the team back up.

 

[CoachKevin]

Nope, never had them never will. I have watched other teams with so-called captains...and it didn't fare very well.

Plus I would rather them hate me, than hate each other

 

[sluggers]

When my DD#3's basketball team won the NCAA D3 championship (oh, and I so hate writing those words...), the team had two extremely effective captains. They worked hard, they had a clear goal, they were sociable. My DD#3 says they were instrumental in the team's success.

Those two captains were *exceptional* people...one of the kids was head and shoulders talent wise above every other player on the team, yet she *never* asked for more playing time. She never thought she should get any favors, even though she could play circles around every other player on the team or in the country, for that matter. She should have been an All-American (she had to settle for MVP for the finals), but because she gave up her playing time, she didn't put up the numbers some of the other kids had.

I've never met anyone with that kind of talent and that kind of humbleness (except for GOINGDEEP, of course), and I've been coaching for 30+ years. My own kids were not that way.

The next year, my DD#3 was a senior and a captain. The team had a great year by most standards, but it wasn't as good as the year they won it all. She will admit that she wasn't as effective as a captain as the other two. My guess is that DD#3 was too driven and demanding (kind of like Ted Williams) and didn't know how to motivate kids to do "one more run through" to make it perfect.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

When my DD#3's basketball team won the NCAA D3 championship (oh, and I so hate writing those words...), the team had two extremely effective captains. They worked hard, they had a clear goal, they were sociable. My DD#3 says they were instrumental in the team's success.

Those two captains were *exceptional* people...one of the kids was head and shoulders talent wise above every other player on the team, yet she *never* asked for more playing time. She never thought she should get any favors, even though she could play circles around every other player on the team or in the country, for that matter. She should have been an All-American (she had to settle for MVP for the finals), but because she gave up her playing time, she didn't put up the numbers some of the other kids had.

I've never met anyone with that kind of talent and that kind of humbleness (except for GOINGDEEP, of course), and I've been coaching for 30+ years. My own kids were not that way.

The next year, my DD#3 was a senior and a captain. The team had a great year by most standards, but it wasn't as good as the year they won it all. She will admit that she wasn't as effective as a captain as the other two. My guess is that DD#3 was too driven and demanding (kind of like Ted Williams) and didn't know how to motivate kids to do "one more run through" to make it perfect.

I see Mr. Ray has jokes today!!

 

[02Crush]

I pick random players (shifting through different ones per event) for each tournament to be Captains. We select two per event. These ladies jobs are to be at all plate meetings, help write out the line up cards for each game, call the coin tosses and most importantly show a Respectful Face of our Players to the umpires. I want these ladies to know who the umps are by name. I want the umps to know some of our players by their name. It is personal and makes for more fun. However, I have done this in 10U and now 12U. I will probably get away from this as we get older. The younger girls like it. Older ones probably won't care. Suppose it depends on the age.

 

[riseball]

....If you get the most votes then there is no faction.

History shows that in any election all voters immediately provide unwavering support for the winner chosen by the majority.

 

[Greenmonsters]

History shows that in any election all voters immediately provide unwavering support for the winner chosen by the majority.

Says the man from the state of hangin' chads

 

[riseball]

Says the man from the state of hangin' chads

People here are still whining about that one. Grandma down in Palm Beach can simultaneously work 20 bingo cards, but punching the right hole in a ballot was too much.