Training captains

Scenario #1: Congratulations kid!  You were selected by your teammates to be the team captain.  I expect you to be a good one.  Good luck.”

Scenario #2:  “Congratulations kid!  You were selected by your teammates to be the team captain.  I expect you to be a good one so I am going to send you to our school’s ‘Developing Leadership Seminar’ for captains and club advisors.  Good luck.”

Which scenario do you think is going to produce a better outcome?  It’s pretty much a no brainer.  Unfortunately, Scenario #1 is how about 98% of teams handle the concept of captains.  Assign them and hope by some miracle that the ones chosen do a good job.

Think of it this way.  Would you tell a kid that he is going to be your leadoof hitter and then fail to train him on what makes a good leadoff hitter?  Probably not but we tend to do that when it comes to captains.

 

A few years ago, I made a proposal to my school to create a “Captain’s Camp” that would run just prior to the start of the school year.  Each coach would submit a name or two of actual captains (if they were known) or a few kids that they suspected would be named captains in the future.  The camp would provide training on the following:

• Leadership styles
• Leadership strategies and best practices
• Guest speakers from the sports and business world
• Role playing experiences
• Team building activities
• and so forth

All this would be an attempt to train kids to be better leaders instead of just hoping they figured it out on their own.  There are many ways this can be done but the larger point is …

What are you doing to TEACH capatins how to be a captain?

Next post: The coaching attitude