When Should You NOT have Captains?

As long as I have been alive sports teams have had captains. As coaches, we have been conditioned to accept that this is how it should be. I'm going to ask you to really think about whether your team should have captains. I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't, but I am going to tell you that if you have captains, but do not have leadership, you are setting yourself up for team turmoil.

Being a captain of a team is not a job that should be taken lightly. It comes with great responsibility that most youths are not experienced in or even capable of. It takes a very special young athlete to be able to handle the responsibility and pressure that comes with the job. Jeff Janssen is one of the most knowledgeable gurus in sports leadership and he has an entire program dedicated to mentoring team captains. His book is almost 200 pages on the topic. It is important to understand that you can't elect captains without educating and training them on what being a captain is.

Many athletes believe that being a captains means that it is your job to yell at your team when things are not going well or when the team is not playing well. This is NOT what a captain is. A captain needs to be a player that mediates team conflicts, acts as a liaison between the players and coaches, gives teammates positive reinforcement and motivation and takes personal responsibility for the team. This takes a very mature and confident young man or woman to accomplish.

There are a few situations where you should absolutely look closely to see if captains are the best idea for your team leadership. Please accept that these statements are very general and there may be exceptions.

1. Any team that is not at the varsity level. Young kids do not have the skills needed to be an effective captain, nor do they have the skills needed to accept the leadership of their peers. They have not developed the communication and inter-personal skills needed.

2. Girl's teams. Girls are much more social than boys. Girls are also much more concerned with making their teammates upset and they often worry about their friends being mad at them. Likewise, they are more likely to take any criticism from a peer as a personal attack.

3. You don't have two or three players that are obvious leaders. If it takes you more than two seconds to know who your captains are, then you probably don't have any.

Remember, these are general comments. There are many girls and younger players that will be great captains. These are scenarios where you should be absolutely sure that you have the right athletes before naming captains.

If you decide that you do not want captains, you still need leadership on your team. How do you get it?

1. Everyone is a captain. Teach your team that you expect everyone to act like a captain. Explain the expectations for them. Your true leaders will be very obvious in a short period of time to you and the team. The players will have individuals that they look to and you will get leadership without the stress of the title of captain.

2. Weekly captains. Change who the captains are week to week. Base your decision on practices and games from the previous week and explain to the team on Monday why the players were selected. Each week you will announce the captains. Some weeks the names will change and some weeks they will not.

3. Delegate certain jobs to different players that you want to take on leadership roles. One player might be in charge of your dynamic stretching, another could get their position started during their individual time, and another could be in charge of putting a schedule together for who gets water on game day.

You can have a leader without a captain, but you can not have a captain without a leader. Develop the leader and then and only then should you have a captain.

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How to communicate with your players, so you don't have to talk to the parents.

The title of this article implies that you don't want to communicate with the parents of your players. This isn't what it means at all. The fact is that we should all want to create an environment with our parents that is open and based on the principle of togetherness. The point of this article is to limit the number of negative conversations that you need to have during your season. In 19 years, I have had three of these conversations and each time it was because I dropped the ball in my communication with the athlete. If you are pro-active and honest with your athletes you will have few if any issues with your parents.

Here are a few tips to use to have an open relationship with your athletes.

1.  Complete a skill assessment on each athlete during your first week of practice. Even if you are not having cuts, assess each player on their game skills, athleticism, knowledge of the game, etc. Sit down with each player and go over the assessment with them. Ask them if they disagree with anything on it. You will find that the vast majority will have a realistic opinion of their ability. Tell each player where you see them fitting into the team. If they are not a likely starter make sure they understand that things can change and mean it!

2.  Talk to every player, every day about anything except for your sport. Ask them about their day, their classes, their dog, or their favorite song. You can spend as little as 10 seconds with a player. They will see that you really care about them as people. This will help create that bond that you need to have a tight team and it will give you the benefit of the doubt with the player when they are feeling down about their play.

3.  Publicly praise your role players. Make sure that everyone understands that every contribution is significant to your success as a team. It isn't the superstar that is the difference between the best teams, it is the role player. If your lesser skilled players feel that they are an important piece of the team, he/she will never complain about their playing time.

4. No surprises.  If you are changing your lineup, you may be crushing one of your players. The player that is no longer starting may run through a number of emotions: anger, embarrassment, and disappointment to name a few. The day before the game you should speak with the player not starting. In that private conversation let him/her know the reason why. Be honest with them. If they aren't getting it done, let them know. They will appreciate not being blindsided on game day when you announce the starters and it will give them a day to digest the information.

If you do all of the above and incorporate these simple rules for your parents you will have few if any issues with the parents through the season.

Here are a few rules for you to have with your parents.

1. You will never talk to them about playing time or about other athletes. It isn't right to talk about other athletes with them. They should understand that. As for playing time, their child should talk to you about what they need to do to get better. When you have that conversation, be honest and also sensitive to their feelings. You don't want to lose the kid. If they do what you asked and do improve....get them on the field!

2. If there is a concern, the parent should encourage the athlete to speak with you first. If the parents, feel that was not successful, they should then speak with you. If at that point, they feel unsatisfied, then and only then should it elevate to the athletic director or principal.

The strategies with your players are the important piece here. The more you communicate with your players and the more loved and appreciated that they feel, the easier your season will be and the fewer problems you will have.

Three Ways to Make Your Practice More Competitive

We all want our teams to be competitive and to fight during games. If you want your athletes to compete at their highest level than you need to practice it. You need to create opportunities for them to be challenged and to compete every day. If you don't, your practices will begin to get boring and your players will not push themselves to their limits and that will be reflected during games. Below, you will find three ways to make your practice more competitive.

1. Challenge Teams. Create teams at the beginning of the year and keep them the entire season. I generally split my teams up based on offense and defense. We will have a Black team and a Gold team that will compete against each other almost every day. You can do many of your every day drills with the teams competing. In lacrosse, you can do ground ball drills with Black going against Gold. The first team to five wins and the loser runs. You can do sport related relay races, 1 v 1's, fast break drills, etc. The drills are limitless, but the key is to always have a consequence for losing or a reward for winning. You will find that the teams you create will take a lot of pride in winning these challenges and you need to monitor the team to make sure that it doesn't begin to get unfriendly.

2. Winners and Losers. Throughout your practice you will have a number of drills that require your players to go hard against others. Many of these are designed to simulate real game situations. You can easily turn some of them into competitions. In football, when my starting defense was going against the scout team offensive we would play a game called, 4 plays/5 yards. OK, I'm not great at naming at drills! In the drill, the offense had 4 plays to gain 5 yards. If they did, the defense ran or did pushups. In basketball, you might work on killing the clock. You have 10 seconds. If the defense manages to foul, offense loses. When practicing game situations, always have a winner and a loser. It promotes competition and doesn't allow your players to walk through the drill.

3. Benchmarks. Time and measure every thing! If you are a soccer or lacrosse coach, run a timed mile every single day. It holds your athletes accountable and creates competition between each other. Football coaches do 40 yard dash and shuttles a couple of times a week. Baseball and softball, time your players running the bases and from second to home a couple of times a week. Make sure that your athletes know that the times do matter. If you do partner drills, measure who caught the most balls in 2 minutes. There are many drills that you can time and measure to make it more competitive. It forces your athletes to give their best effort every single time.

These are three ideas and concepts that will help make your practice more competitive.  Use your coaching style to create even more opportunities.  They are there!  Your players will enjoy practice more and the results will be seen on game day.