Established teams are often given first choice of practice times and fields. After all, these teams will actually be using the fields regularly and are not unreliable in that the school often knows them pretty well. Many of these teams build strong relationships with their pertinent administrators if just to get what they need to practice. Alumni can greatly help a team throughout a team's development. Teams can get alumni who are playing on local club teams to come out and coach them, whether that is full time or part time. Even if it is just to add some numbers to practice, this can greatly help younger players as they can solidly see what was needed to succeed on earlier teams, and what is needed now in the club scene. I have also heard that some alumni have donated or even created funds for their alma mater teams. Whether it is a scholarship or a temporary donation to help out that season, this can be a great help to otherwise cash-strapped teams.
Having a team legacy and history is not something that is given to you, but it must be created itself. My team has only been around for 10 years, but it has been difficult to create a lasting legacy or history. The team's identity changes quickly with each year's captain, but I am attempting to change that. The first thing that I noticed that was difficult with our history was that incoming captains often had no experience or help leading the team. Most of the teams had seniors leading everything the team did including drills and games. This leaves almost no room for underclassmen to develop their own leadership skills. One way to get them involved is to allow underclassmen to run certain drills when you have separation. We like to play 10-pull and I often appoint a junior to take on as captain of the offense. I think he is going to be a great future leader and want him to see what it is like leading a team even if it is just during practice.
In a break from tradition, I am also constructing a sort of "captain's handbook" to help out later captains. When I was thinking of drills to do, I at first just had to remember what we did last year and try to emulate that. Since the year has begun though I have been tweaking these drills to better suit our needs and writing these notes down. I plan to compile all of these thoughts into drill sheets with variations all in one notebook. I also plan on putting in guides to finding tournaments to go to, qualities that I looked for in selecting players for roles, and other things such as reports on what went well and wrong at tournaments concerning strategy. I have also been using a program called Evernote that makes it very easy to clip things from the internet, including pictures. Over the course of the year I have been clipping good Huddle articles, blog entries, and diagrams on plans to put this into the handbook. As much as I want this document to include my thoughts, future captains should see where I pulled those ideas from in case they want to make their own thoughts on the subject. I am hoping that this handbook will be passed from captain to captain now. This will start a history of help from captain to captain.
People other than captains can help out too. We have recently figured a way to help out with getting the field times and space that we need. Since our school has a board that governs all club sports, we have been trying to get people onto the committee. This requires a modicum of extra work every week; about 1 or 2 hours worth some weeks, sometimes less. This year we have two ultimate people on the board and can help directly influence any policies that may affect us as a team. This year, I am sure that I have one of the sophomores ready to take my spot on the board. While you do need to be voted onto the board, most people run unopposed every year due to general apathy towards the positions. While I can understand this, it looks great on a resume (as leadership position) and does not require that much work at all.
It is also in a small team's best interest to start building relationships with people that are useful such as fundraising or sponsorships. Recently we have been taking advantage of a connection that allows us to sell beer at the local NFL and NBA games. These are great fundraisers for us and bring in money both for the team and the members that participate. We are also building a relationship so that the team can continue to be considered for this opportunity in the future. Neither the NFL or NBA franchise looks like it is going anywhere anytime soon. Sponsorships have been a little more difficult to do in this tough economy, but we are still looking around for those.
Here's to hopes that this can help other new captains or team leaders that are having a difficult time with forging a new team our of nothing. A team history is built up over the time and it does require some hard work to get it going. You don't want this to just be a phase that people go through while in college, but rather a complete experience that they will remember. Hopefully this will mean they are willing to come around and help you out later.
P.S. I think I will be digitizing this "handbook" that I will be making. Keeping in mind that it is mostly my thoughts and opinions, I would be willing to help out other small teams with a copy of it. Let me know in the comments if this is something that teams are interested in.
1 comment:
I think digitizing something like this would be great for small teams as a whole. I think that its one of the problems with the sport, that really most of the teams even at regionals are relearning what to do from year to year. I'm captaining a mediocre Metro-East team this year, and am trying to record the same sort of stuff it sounds like you are doing. And my team has been around for 30 years and there is still very little knowledge passed down from year to year. I think a bigger project like collating this sort of stuff from captains all over would be great and could do a bunch to advance the sport.
Post a Comment