Leaders

I was wondering how coaches pick the leaders or captains on their teams. Do some of you pick a captain because she's your daughter? Or do you go by ability? What about expierence with the game? Or is it just the oldest girls on the team with some expierence are leaders?

I have expierence, i am the daughter of one of my many coaches, and i have ability and potential. But i was curious to see how some coaches out their pick their captains. What do you expect out of your captain? I found out through the hard way that it's hard to be a captain and doing what the coaches want you to do, but also trying not to be the most hated girl on the team. And i watched our pitcher over the season. She was suppose to be a captain, but she wanted to focus more on pitching. The stress of being the ace pitcher and a captain would overwhelm her. How do the coaches out there respond to situations like this?

Who is vocal and can motivate her teammates. If you do not have the respect of your teammates and earn it, it doesn't matter who we pick.

I would look for the most confident player who is willing to share that confidence around. You can't take a player riddled with self doubt and ask them to be a leader (i.e. I'm so worried about me that I don't have time to help anyone else). If you have a girl that is strong and self condifdent and get her to be genrous in her praise of her teammates that's leading. You can also lead by example (work hard, show up early, listen well). Real leadership is taking something of yourself and making others around you better. If your hated for being a leader you need to reexamine what your doing because that isn't leading, that's bossing. Let the coaches be a boss when necessary, be a positive force as a player leader. A coach needs to be a boss sometimes and players are expected to follow the bosses instruction even if they don't want to. A leader gets others to follow her example becuase they want to follow it not because they have to follow.

Captains can be a political choice made by teammates/coaches whomever. The leaders are who they are whether they are captains or not, it's their nature, they aren't named they just are.

Coaches generally do a very poor job picking the captains. Usually, they pick either the coach's daughter or the best players on the team. Male coaches do an awful job of picking captains for girls teams.

Girls/women organize themselves differently in group activities than men. They value different qualities. Specifically, women/girls value the "party planner"--the person who can keep a group together and keep everyone relatively happy. The party planners in fact run the group, not the best athlete or the loudest. Generally, the party planner has the best social skills and the best organizational abilities--hence her ability to plan and run great parties. No person in a group of girls dares p*ss off the party planner for fear of being ex-communicated.

It takes a while to pick out the party planner--but she is there.

One time, there was one girl on the team who always brought the playing cards with her to the tournaments. Our team rule is that the girls have to stay together as a group for the entire tournament--so, she would pick out where the team was going to go between games and what they were going to do in that period. She had great social skills. I finally figured out to make her the captain instead of the best player. She did a great job.

If coaches were smart, they would identify the "party planners" in a group and make them the captains. But, a coach usually thinks he is a combination of Knute Rockne and Vince Lombardi, and so pick out the loudest, least organized player for a captain, which ultimate results in disaster.

Generally, I'm very skeptical of the ability of coaches/captains to motivate athletes. Talented athletes aren't motivated by a screaming coach or captain. They are driven by something much deeper than a reaction to a tongue lashing.

Also, pitchers are pitchers for a reason--they are aloof people interested in the craft of pitching. They make terrible captains.

Motivation is internal, not external. All a coach or another player can do is provide an external stimulus, which the subject will either choose to follow or not follow. The best way to lead a team, if that is YOUR choice and not simply because it is assigned or because Mom or Dad is the head coach, is on the field by how you play and off the field by how you treat people - especially the ones that cannot do anything for you. Nothing shows true character more than to watch how someone treats another person who cannot do anything for them.

sluggers said:

Generally, I'm very skeptical of the ability of coaches/captains to motivate athletes. Talented athletes aren't motivated by a screaming coach or captain. They are driven by something much deeper than a reaction to a tongue lashing.

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Very true. The best motivator in any sport is desire to not let their teammates down. Players can not play for mom & dad, or the coach, they must want to work hard and play for each other. To motivate them well, a coach needs to help bond the girls together, preventing inter-personal conflicts, etc.

Rotating players at positions often, playing everyone a fair amount, and working everyone at both an IF and OF position, regardless of whether they will ever play IF in bracket game or not, is a good start to preventing conflicts between girls. Treat them equally and fairly as possible or suffer the invisible consequences.

Takie them to camp if old enough, or other type trip if younger, (see college teams play,etc.), where parents dont go along, just a single mom to chaperone if needed, and make them depend on each other for a day or two is great. This kind of thing really helps to bring a team together.

I tried several methods. A couple of years I chose them myself. Another time I had the girls vote based on who best met the criteria I laid out. Once I had interested girls make a presentation on why they should be captain, then let the girls vote. About the only thing I wouldn't do is let my daughter or the daughter of my assistant coach be captains because I figured they had enough trouble being the conduits of everything the girls were unhappy about anyway.

None of them turned out particularly well. I had people with the title of captain but they didn't do much to lead the team. The two I didn't let be captains probably did more leading than anyone else. I tend to agree with Sluggers -- girls have a hard time leading their peers.

In contrast, my son Eric was usually captain of his soccer and wrestling teams whether it was coach's choice or players' choice. He was a hard worker and a vocal leader. Most important, though, he led by example. In high school, when younger players were struggling to finish a long run after he was done, he'd go back and encourage them. On the field he would direct the action. But that sort of thing is rare.

My advice is not to worry about getting a C on your jersey. Act like a captain and you will be one -- and everyone will know it.

What would a team captain be responsible to do on a girls softball team ?

Ken K -

"My advice is not to worry about getting a C on your jersey. Act like a captain and you will be one -- and everyone will know it."

Excellent advice Ken. Leaders on a team will develop through their actions and very well may not be the "Captain". Last year (16U travel ball) we had the senior girls on the team (two) take on leadership roles to lead the warm-ups, give some pep talks, etc. We chose different girls to take ground rules etc and introduce themselves and the team to the umpires and opposition. For that game they were "Captains" but not necessarily leaders. Our catcher developed into a leader through her actions - she gave 100% and expected no less from her mates - she led by example and became the voice of leadership on the field. A 13-14 year old pitcher became a leader although she was younger than most because she was looked upon to help the team win games - and she expected 100% from her mates and let them know when the "effort" was seemingly less, not the ability. Leaders include those that recognize that things are beginning to unravel and call time to take a pause, rewind, and regroup. They know that the coach can make only so many visits to the field. With any luck, these players begin to do so on their own with repsect and are accepted by their teammates. This makes the job of selecting "Captains" much easier for the coach. The leaders have taken the initiative themselves because of their personality and leadership skills and the captains, IMO should be those that know the rules and can communicate with those in authority, including umpires. Although "Captains" of teams may be leaders, I see the roles being differrent - related, but different.

What captains do

In college, the captains duties are more complicated than in travel ball. I'm going to assume everyone is an adult who is reading this.

(1) Information

The younger players are often very confused. They think the world is XYZ when the world is really ABC. So, the captains should help the younger players understand what is going on. The captains tell the younger players what the coach can't or won't tell them.

The captains should be telling the younger players what to expect from the coach and what the coaches expect from the players. E.g., "if the coach says you need to lift, she expects you to be at the gym at 5 AM Monday, Tuesday and Thursday."

The captains should "translate" coach-speak into English for younger players. E.g., if a coach says, "You are doing well, and you had a great year. But, Sally has been working very hard. There will be competition for your position," he means, "You better work your a** off next year, because if you don't, you will be riding the bench."

It is extremely important that the captains talk to the younger players at the end of the season to see if there are problems that the player isn't telling the coach, and then relaying that information to the coach.

The captains also should be telling the younger players about the "relationship" (and I mean all kinds of relationships) between various players on the team. (I wont' get into specifics, but let's just say the college freshmen are often unbelievably naive.)

(2) Organizational

During the season, the captains are responsible for making sure that (1) parties happen, (2) all the players are invited to the parties and (3) all players attend the parties. It is a big, complicated, messy job when you have 15 to 20 girls/women of varying levels of maturity and different social preferences. The coach, of course, knows nothing about these parties--yet somehow the coach complains if the parties are not occurring appropriately.

During the off-season, the captains are responsible for organizing all the "unofficial voluntary" workouts and making sure the players attend these "unofficial voluntary" workouts. They also have to report back to the coach as to who is or is not attending the "unofficial voluntary" workouts.