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Post by cfoott on Mar 23, 2018 15:22:44 GMT -6
Which is your preference and how do you implement it?
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Post by adawg2302 on Mar 23, 2018 16:16:50 GMT -6
We generally have smaller numbers than most (approx. 30-40 players). Usually have between 2-4 captains then a "Player of the Week" who serves as a captain that week. Between the 2-4 "season long" captains & the "Player of the Week Captain", they are usually spread out pretty evenly among different positions so their influence is felt throughout the team. This has worked pretty well for us.
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Post by groundchuck on Mar 23, 2018 18:22:49 GMT -6
Both. At the last school I coached at I did both. Captains came off the leadership council. Current school we only have captains.
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Post by cfoott on Mar 23, 2018 18:38:26 GMT -6
Both. At the last school I coached at I did both. Captains came off the leadership council. Current school we only have captains. How did the two coexist? |
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Post by coachdawhip on Mar 23, 2018 21:13:49 GMT -6
We have a leadership council, 4 example right now we have NO CAPTAINS.
They are taught how to lead , vote on items, etc...
Come July the team will vote for Captains, IF a kid is voted Captain he is placed on the leadership council. Only had that happen with 1 kid.
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Post by groundchuck on Mar 24, 2018 6:12:53 GMT -6
Both. At the last school I coached at I did both. Captains came off the leadership council. Current school we only have captains. How did the two coexist? In the off season players could apply for the council. We met regularly. The team didn’t choose captains until during the second week of practice. I continued to meet, usually quick and informal with the leaders and captains all season. |
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Post by Chris Clement on Mar 24, 2018 7:01:37 GMT -6
How many of each do you have then?
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Post by aceback76 on Mar 24, 2018 7:51:34 GMT -6
Which is your preference and how do you implement it? GAME CAPTAINS. We never wanted ONE group (be it a Leadership Council, or permanent Captains) to STAY in a position of authority for the duration (too many things can GO WRONG)! |
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Post by stilltryin on Mar 24, 2018 8:29:57 GMT -6
Always interesting to see how guys approach this. Knew an old coach who had a bad experience as a player, when his college team split between the two captains, so he always had a single captain.
Like aceback, we go with game captains, with the thought of not creating an artificial (and permanent) hierarchy within the team; by the end of the season every senior will have been a captain for at least one game.
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Post by larrymoe on Mar 24, 2018 9:14:37 GMT -6
Neither. The past couple years I've just grabbed the 4 oldest kids closest to me before the coin toss. I've tried just about every method- Srs, one from each class, leadership council, kids vote for them, coaches vote, etc- I really think it's one of the most overrated and useless things in sports.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 24, 2018 9:51:34 GMT -6
Neither. The past couple years I've just grabbed the 4 oldest kids closest to me before the coin toss. I've tried just about every method- Srs, one from each class, leadership council, kids vote for them, coaches vote, etc- I really think it's one of the most overrated and useless things in sports. Agreed. What is the purpose of the "leadership council"? What are they supposed to do, actually? Quite honestly, it has always struck me as one of those window dressing type things coaches do to pay lip service to some concept of "character building". The team leaders are going to be organic, anyway. Whether or not a guy has the title of "Captain" or is on a leadership council really doesn't matter. The kids know who the alpha dogs are. I'm sure it works for a lot of programs. It's just my opinion that the energy and time spent on it isn't worth whatever benefit comes back from it. But I'm probably wrong. I'm sure there are many programs that implement it efficiently and get great results from it. |
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center
Junior Member
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Post by center on Mar 24, 2018 11:40:45 GMT -6
Neither. The past couple years I've just grabbed the 4 oldest kids closest to me before the coin toss. I've tried just about every method- Srs, one from each class, leadership council, kids vote for them, coaches vote, etc- I really think it's one of the most overrated and useless things in sports. Agreed. What is the purpose of the "leadership council"? What are they supposed to do, actually? Quite honestly, it has always struck me as one of those window dressing type things coaches do to pay lip service to some concept of "character building". The team leaders are going to be organic, anyway. Whether or not a guy has the title of "Captain" or is on a leadership council really doesn't matter. The kids know who the alpha dogs are. I'm sure it works for a lot of programs. It's just my opinion that the energy and time spent on it isn't worth whatever benefit comes back from it. But I'm probably wrong. I'm sure there are many programs that implement it efficiently and get great results from it. I don’t think there is really anything wrong with any of the particular leadership methods:committee/captains/nothing. I do believe that leadership and tough decisions still need to be provided by the head coach and his staff. They are the hired, paid, leaders of the team. When other forms of leadership replace the coach then there are usually problems. |
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Post by Defcord on Mar 24, 2018 11:58:57 GMT -6
I am not big on the whole captain thing. I remember reading Sabans book and he said something along the lines of he doesn’t want captains because he wants everyone to be a leader.
One of the silliest things I ever witnessed in football was at one school there was an area of four lockers, kind of the center piece of the lockereoom. Overtime it had become tradition that there would be four captains and they would use those four lockers. I was there three years and the first year there were only three kids that the HC wanted to be captains so we had like an hour long meeting to figure out who was going to use that locker and become the fourth captain. Dumbest meeting ever, until two years later we had five kids he wanted to be captains but only four lockers...
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Post by coachbdud on Mar 24, 2018 12:08:04 GMT -6
Both
Leadership Council 8-10 kids
Captains chosen from within the leadership council
Kids get to vote for captains
Coahces also get a vote
most votes win
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Post by groundchuck on Mar 25, 2018 3:53:28 GMT -6
If I am ever a head coach again I am going to take a seriously long look at not having captains in the traditional sense.
When we did choose captains we did it in a way I think was pretty unique. The players had to answer four questions and on the worksheet also sign their name. The four questions were:
1. Who has worked the hardest since the end of last season?
2. Who has worked the hardest since this season started?
3. Who do you look at as the alpha dog? Who do you follow?
4. Who best represent this program's ideals and philosophy and is a good representative of our community.
The assistant coaches also got to answer these and I chose 3-4 based on those answers. It gave us a pretty good group most years.
My last year as a head coach where I was we did have a problem with the captains thinking they were actual authority figures able to dole out punishment to some of our support crew without checking with the head coach first. This led to a lot of issues. So be very clear on what you expect captains to be able to do and not do. Which kind of goes back to what Oneback said about leaving them in a position of authority too long.
Do you view captains as actually having authority on your team or are they figureheads?
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Post by cwaltsmith on Mar 26, 2018 8:12:06 GMT -6
I know some of you have said this is pointless and over rated... I kinda disagree. Leadership on a team is VITAL!!!!. Now i agree alot of the leadership council stuff is lip service or for show. However, I have never been a part of a good team that doesn't have good leaders. Obviously, everyone would hope to have natural born leaders that just happen. However, that isn't always the case. And when it isnt, we can sit around and blame our lack of leadership for our terrible record, or we can do something to try and change it. It wont happen over night, and won't be easy or 100% successful. But I think some of the stuff mentioned above is a great start to getting kids to learn how to lead, and identify who to follow!
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Post by coachcb on Mar 26, 2018 8:44:55 GMT -6
Neither. The past couple years I've just grabbed the 4 oldest kids closest to me before the coin toss. I've tried just about every method- Srs, one from each class, leadership council, kids vote for them, coaches vote, etc- I really think it's one of the most overrated and useless things in sports. Agreed. We do the same thing. We decided to stray away from it one year after the coaching staff vetoed three out of the four kids that the team voted in as captains. The kids turned it into a popularity contest; two of the kids they voted in had missed all of basketball and track the previous year as they had been caught boozing and the third one was an uncoachable, arrogant little rat who we'd never have in a leadership role. Now, the staff votes on four captains but, most of the time, they really aren't anything other than figure heads. We're not going to let them make any major decisions as we don't want to put ourselves in the position to have to override them and create dissension within the team. Bottom line: even the best team leaders make poor decisions as they're 17-18 year old kids. |
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Post by QBCoachDurham on Mar 26, 2018 8:50:02 GMT -6
We do both. The coaches appoint 7 players to the leadership council (at least 1 SO, 2 JR, 3 SR). I meet with them as a group once a week. They are there to provide feedback and suggestions. The main thing they usually suggest is stiffer penalties for people who are late to practice or get in trouble in school. We have 2-4 game captains each week. These are seniors only who have met all of the requirements (summer attendance, etc). At the end of the regular season, the entire team votes for permanent captains. These players (usually 3 or 4) are the game captains for all playoff games, and are listed in the yearbook and on the website as the team captains.
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Post by Coach.A on Mar 26, 2018 9:20:59 GMT -6
This past season we had 3 Team Captains, but also assigned Unit Leaders for each position group. The main purpose of this is to provide a greater sense of ownership for the Athletes in our program. Unit Leaders get input in some program decisions, they break down their unit at the end of each practice and before games, they are responsible for coming up with a name/identity and even logo for their unit. Next season I'm considering having the unit leaders run an EDD or two during indy time. I think this worked well and we're looking at expanding on the idea this upcoming season.
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CoachC
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Post by CoachC on Mar 26, 2018 11:48:28 GMT -6
I really like Coach.A's idea about unit leaders. After the first couple of weeks of practice, I usually just supervise my EDD's and let the kids run it. It allows them some ownership and they are pretty good about monitoring the work. (I am not far away though) I think I will add a "unit leader" this year.
For games, the staff usually picks two kids from O and 2 from D that had good weeks of practice to be our captains. We pick them right before practice on Thursday so they can practice the coin toss decisions as part of our "mini-game" walk through.
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Post by coachcb on Mar 26, 2018 12:56:35 GMT -6
We give our captains responsibility but it's limited:
-We ask them to contact the other players about off-season workouts. We get much higher participation when there's peer pressure involved.
-They get an opportunity to address the team before and after games and practice but they're given strict guidelines on what they can say.
-We pull them aside each week and ask them about the moral of the team, if there's anything we need to address as a staff, and just other basic house-keeping issues.
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Post by vanden48 on Mar 28, 2018 7:45:00 GMT -6
Neither. The past couple years I've just grabbed the 4 oldest kids closest to me before the coin toss. I've tried just about every method- Srs, one from each class, leadership council, kids vote for them, coaches vote, etc- I really think it's one of the most overrated and useless things in sports. Agreed. What is the purpose of the "leadership council"? What are they supposed to do, actually? Quite honestly, it has always struck me as one of those window dressing type things coaches do to pay lip service to some concept of "character building". The team leaders are going to be organic, anyway. Whether or not a guy has the title of "Captain" or is on a leadership council really doesn't matter. The kids know who the alpha dogs are. I'm sure it works for a lot of programs. It's just my opinion that the energy and time spent on it isn't worth whatever benefit comes back from it. But I'm probably wrong. I'm sure there are many programs that implement it efficiently and get great results from it. I went out and purchased 9 copies Jeff Janssen's Team Captains Leadership Manual. I gave it to 9 players and we meet once a week to discuss the book. I also purchased 9 copies of Jeff Janssen's 7 secrets to successful coaches, and gave it to all my coaches to read. I'm not trying to turn the kids into Ghandi or Jesus Christ. The book, and our discussions are just giving them some tools to fall on when they need to lead. I will select captains for the season and also have a Weekly Captain. But right now I have organized a Warrior Challenge where the team is divided into 10 groups. I selected 10 Lieutenants to be in charge of these groups, they drafted a Sargent Major and Corporal in a snake draft with me. Then they went out and recruited/signed 2 more Privates for their teams. The teams will earn points based off of work outs, grades, spring sport participation, fundraising, community service. There is a leadership hierarchy on the teams, Lieutenants, SRG MAJ, CORP, PVT, and they all have specific duties and responsibilities. The Lieutenants also had to go recruit an adult adviser, any coach or adult at the school, didn't have to be a football coach. The twist is that there can be demotions and promotions with in each team. And they can demote a Private off their team to a waiver wire, where he can be picked up by another team. This competition is serving as my testing ground for the leaders. So each group doesn't just have 1 leader, essentially they have 3, so 30 leaders. After the first 9 are done reading the Janssen book, they will pass it on to another teammate. By the end of the summer I'm hoping every kid has read the book and has an idea of how to lead, if and when they need to. I can't expect a kid to do stoichiometry with out giving him a chemistry book and teaching him a little about balancing equations. He may never be a chemist, but he won't be out in the dark when he sees a chemical equation. We can't expect a KID to lead if we don't teach them a little about what it means to lead. Just my thoughts. |
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Post by groundchuck on Mar 28, 2018 11:13:36 GMT -6
It really boils down to the kids. The seasons when my leaders took it seriously they grew and it was great. The years when they didn’t.....yeah I kinda was a waste of time for those kids.....not for all though.
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Post by fshamrock on Mar 28, 2018 11:40:11 GMT -6
Agreed. What is the purpose of the "leadership council"? What are they supposed to do, actually? Quite honestly, it has always struck me as one of those window dressing type things coaches do to pay lip service to some concept of "character building". The team leaders are going to be organic, anyway. Whether or not a guy has the title of "Captain" or is on a leadership council really doesn't matter. The kids know who the alpha dogs are. I'm sure it works for a lot of programs. It's just my opinion that the energy and time spent on it isn't worth whatever benefit comes back from it. But I'm probably wrong. I'm sure there are many programs that implement it efficiently and get great results from it. I went out and purchased 9 copies Jeff Janssen's Team Captains Leadership Manual. I gave it to 9 players and we meet once a week to discuss the book. I also purchased 9 copies of Jeff Janssen's 7 secrets to successful coaches, and gave it to all my coaches to read. I'm not trying to turn the kids into Ghandi or Jesus Christ. The book, and our discussions are just giving them some tools to fall on when they need to lead. I will select captains for the season and also have a Weekly Captain. But right now I have organized a Warrior Challenge where the team is divided into 10 groups. I selected 10 Lieutenants to be in charge of these groups, they drafted a Sargent Major and Corporal in a snake draft with me. Then they went out and recruited/signed 2 more Privates for their teams. The teams will earn points based off of work outs, grades, spring sport participation, fundraising, community service. There is a leadership hierarchy on the teams, Lieutenants, SRG MAJ, CORP, PVT, and they all have specific duties and responsibilities. The Lieutenants also had to go recruit an adult adviser, any coach or adult at the school, didn't have to be a football coach. The twist is that there can be demotions and promotions with in each team. And they can demote a Private off their team to a waiver wire, where he can be picked up by another team. This competition is serving as my testing ground for the leaders. So each group doesn't just have 1 leader, essentially they have 3, so 30 leaders. After the first 9 are done reading the Janssen book, they will pass it on to another teammate. By the end of the summer I'm hoping every kid has read the book and has an idea of how to lead, if and when they need to. I can't expect a kid to do stoichiometry with out giving him a chemistry book and teaching him a little about balancing equations. He may never be a chemist, but he won't be out in the dark when he sees a chemical equation. We can't expect a KID to lead if we don't teach them a little about what it means to lead. Just my thoughts. I'll give you credit coach, while almost certainly don't see eye to eye on this kind of stuff, nobody can say you aren't going all the way with it. By the beard of Zeus that's an exhaustive program. honestly I respect that fact that you believe in it this much, I've never had a problem with people trying out this kind of stuff, i just always hated the twitter warriors who only did it so they could tweet about it......I think you are the real deal, best of luck to you and your staff |
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