Being a Captain

Illinois opened their Captain voting process last night; and attached to the email that opened the process is a list of what a captain is expected to do.  I originally wrote this list after 2012.  Colin updated and attached the list in 2013, Neal did the same in 2014, and here in 2015 Marty has updated and attached the list again.  It’s funny to me to watch the evolution of this list.  It’s almost like a time capsule that I check in with at regular intervals.

The origin of the list is a classic case study in how little some people are aware of their surroundings.  In 2012 we were having our end of the season meeting and I was talking about how the captain process would work when Michael “Zoidberg” Pohling opened his mouth and said “What does a captain do?”  After a bit of time passed I realized he wasn’t joking, he genuinely had no idea what the captains do.  Even after an entire year of being a part of the team, he had never worked out what the purpose of the captains was.  So an annoyed version of me begrudgingly wrote a list of what a captain does.

Here’s the list with some updated comments:

1.      Decide on team leadership personal

a.       There is a typo here.  I wonder how many iterations this list will survive before someone changes it to personnel.  Pretty silly case study on the power of copy and paste.

2.      Decide what kind of offense the team will run, and the way the team will run it.

a.       Ho Stack? Vert Stack? Split Stack?  Multiple offenses?

3.      Decide what kind of defenses the team will employ

a.       Man to man?  Zone?  Variations of Man to Man?  Variations of Zone?  Zone to man?  Man to zone?

4.      Decide who makes each cut throughout the season, and who will be on the final Ateam roster

a.       In every team I have been a part of the captains have had the final say on who makes the roster.  Walden always let us pick our team.  This season with NUT was the most active I have ever been a part of the process.  I gave the captains a list of 16 players and said, “these are the people who will actually get playtime”, then the captains picked their own roster.

5.      Decide how play time will be allocated

a.       With 24 people on a team how do you decide which 7 get to play and when?

6.      Should be passionate about ultimate

a.       I am going to jack Stupca’s opinions here.  There is value in having a captain who is just nuts about Frisbee.  A Captain that eats, breathes, and sleeps ultimate allows everyone else to “sort of get into” Frisbee without feeling like a weirdo.  A young player might feel more comfortable researching ultimate, watching film, reading Ultiworld, or doing an extra work out if he knows that at least he isn’t as weird as the guys at the top of the roster.

7.      Willing to sacrifice their free time for the good of the team

a.       You can either leave Saturday night practice and head to the bars or you can grab some milk and hang out with some rookies and talk about ultimate.

8.      Must be a leader on and off the field

a.       When you’re captain you’re always captain.  Even if you’re at a party you’re still the captain.  Laying out down some stairs and breaking tv’s maybe hilarious, but it’s kind of hard to respect that person in a formal setting.  It may seem unfair but I think it’s even more unfair for you to ask your team to flip their respect for you on and off like a switch depending on whether or not you’re at practice.

9.      Capable of teaching both basic and advanced skills to a large group of people

a.       Some people need help holding a flick with two fingers, some people need help putting invert on their hucks.

10.  Plan out activities and drills for practices from AugustMay

a.       Most teams have about 6-10 hours of practice time.  What are you going to do with all that time?  Are you going to have random practices or are you going to try and make them all lead into each other?

11.  They decide how to split up the x/y teams

a.       Who goes on which x/y roster?  Are you going to split oline/dline?  Stack a team?  Try to split it even?  Stack handlers and stack cutters?

12.  Make the final decision on what tournaments the team will go to.

a.       Sometimes you have to decide that the team is going to Easterns even if the team would rather follow their womens team around like a pack of wet dogs.  The final decision is on the captains.

13.  Need to be able to sell the team in order to get into elite tournaments

a.       Maybe you lost every game at WarmUp this year but you still think you’re good enough to compete at that tournament.  Are you capable of convincing the tournament director that you should be invited back?

14.  Need to be capable of making rookies feel wanted, and getting them excited about staying in the program

a.       Some captains only keep three rookies, others get double digits.  If you don’t have rookies coming into your program then what is you even doing?

15.  Make any strategic adjustments in game, and in tournament

a.       Is Tufts killing you with handler motion and break throws?  Maybe you should put a flat mark on and force hardest on the off handlers.  Are we getting blown up deep?  Maybe we need some help over the top.  Are we completely dysfunctional at defending pull plays?  Maybe we should get a defense to help with that.  Gone are the days where as a player you can just run around and not know who you’re playing against.  As a captain you have to be aware of who the other team is and what they are doing.

16.  They need to be capable of balancing their own game, with making sure the team is playing theirs.

a.       Again, you can’t just go out there and worry about yourself.

17.  Need to bring intensity at every moment, because intensity is contagious

a.       Sometimes your team is tired.  Sometimes it’s a heavy midterms week.  Sometimes everyone is sick.  Sometimes a lot of people are faking injuries.  These are the forces that cool off the water.  Who’s going to add some heat to that water?  Who is going to turn up the yolo?  We can all wait around for practice to end or someone can decide that he’s physically at practice so he might as well be there mentally.

18.  Need to be able to deal with a lot of emails

a.       Just an absurd amount of emails. 

b.      “I’m sick”

c.       “I have too much homework, and am bad at time management”

d.      “I stayed up all night playing smash brothers, now I feel sick”

e.       “I’m pretending to be injured”

f.       “I’m actually injured”

g.       “I figured that since it was Valentine’s day I didn’t have to tell anyone I’d be skipping practice for a date”

h.      Here’s the greatest email I ever got:  “Captains,  I will be leaving practice early to celebrate a religious holiday, additionally I will be showing up late per usual.  DMac”

19.  Need to be able to evaluate and respond concerns about teammates health

a.       Mostly this is just telling people to go see a trainer.  Also it is pretty beneficial if you can tell people that just because their hip abductor hurts doesn’t mean the problem is with the hip abductor; odds are the muscles in your pivot leg are shorter than the muscles in your non pivot leg and this imbalance manifests itself in pain in the hip abductor.  Go to the gym and lift to make the pain go away.

20.  Be really bad at trolling RSD

a.       This stems from a tangential story.  2011 was the first year that we moved to 10 regions and consequently the minimum bids per region was moved from 2 down to 1.  The Great Lakes region only had 1 bid, and in classic Good Lakes 1 bid fashion Illinois took it home.  The path to winning the region that year included having to go through the #8 USAU ranked Michigan; which we did 15-9.  (Side note Michigan had beaten NUT 15-4 the game before.  In the 3 years I have coached NUT NUT has lost to Michigan three times at regionals by a total of 4 points, the year before I coached NUT they lost to Michigan by 10.  I really hate Michigan and if any team I am a part of plays like a bunch of wimps against Michigan I am just going to walk away and never return.)  After this W I went on RSDnospam and wrote a post called Dear USAU.  Walden was so mad.

21.  Need to be able to offer advice to teammates about dealing with injuries

a.       This one is repetitive because it happens all the time

22.  Need to be able to explain the reasoning behind play time allocation

a.       Sometimes that kid who can’t stay on the forceside of his guy wants to know why he isn’t getting any play time.

23.  Know the rules of ultimate

a.       Sometimes Champe thinks that double turns still exist, and sometimes you have to teach him that they don’t.

24.  Motivate the unmotivated

a.       This comment was targeted very specifically at Andy Kilinskis, Brandon Smith, and Alex Komisarz.  How do you motivate someone who is entirely devoid of internal motivation?  It’s an infuriating process, and one that I failed at.  Good luck.

25.  Organize the recruitment strategies

a.       Chalk the quad?  Put up posters?  Play pick up?  Send out Facebook spam to every incoming Freshmen?

26.  Help run Quad day, email high schoolers, respond to emails from high schoolers

a.       Often Quad day is the first time a freshmen ever sees you or your program.  I remember being grabbed by McClain.  He said, “you’re tall sign up for Frisbee!”  I was going to do it anyway, but that first interaction is huge.

27.  Run the Rookie Invite, and work towards every freshmen having fun

a.       This is an Illinois specific thing.  We have a tournament right off the bat.  Mix up vets with returners, just play Frisbee, and try to give rookies some familiar faces amongst the vets who can often be quite cliquey.

28.  Rig the Rookie Invite so that you can feed your ego by winning

a.       This is a direct shot at Kennedy.  I won the rookie invite as a Junior and made sure to let Kennedy know about it a lot.  So during our senior year Kennedy took the 3 very best freshmen, (Marty, Sarson, and Zoidberg).  No one came close to beating them.

29.  Make sure the week back goes as smoothly as possible, and make sure that the time there is allocated as best as it can be

a.       This might be getting a little dated, doesn’t Illinois only do like a three day week back?  Aren’t you guys down in Chambana getting soft? 

30.  Aid the Treasurer and President in any way possible

a.       Sometimes the Treasurer graduates but doesn’t give anyone access to the bank account.  Sometimes as an ex captain your obliged to hunt that treasurer down and get him to sign over access to the bank account.

31.  Be willing to go lifting with anyone who is looking for a buddy

a.       Sometimes you wake up early to lift with your best friend and then snackman texts you in the afternoon looking for a lifting buddy, sometimes you have to go.

32.  Attempt to get 100% attendance at mandatory practices

a.       If you aren’t going to practice then what is you even doing?

33.  Attempt to get 100% attendance at optional practices

a.       If you aren’t going to practice then what is you even doing?

34.  Answer ridiculous questions from everyone

a.       I’ll steal Chuck’s opinions here.  Sometimes people ask questions just so that you think they’re smart.  They don’t even care about the answer they just want recognition that they asked a good question.  For example “why are we running a four man cup instead of a three man cup?”  “What’s the point of letting people clear to the forceside?  Won’t they get in the way?”  “If something is open should I throw it?”  “If they get passed the front 5 guys in our zone what do we do?”

35.  Deal with complaints about everything

a.       Why do we only run man?

b.      This drill is stupid?

c.       Why are we practicing so early in the morning? (said at an 11am practice)

d.      We didn’t work on hucking this practice!

e.       Why do we run four lines?  It’s only like 1 throw a minute!

f.       We are practicing on Valentine’s day?

36.  Constantly remember that you were elected by your peers, they gave you your power, act accordingly

a.       Another direct shot at Kennedy.  Often he would address the team as “you” rather than “we”.  It was always either Kennedy’s way or the highway.  Some might say that his relationship with Jess was the point in which Kennedy eased up and became easier to work with, others might say that Kennedy chilling out had a lot to do with 2013 getting to Nationals.

37.  Analyze what the other team is doing, and identify a way to work against it

a.       I’ve already addressed this

38.  Run drills

a.       Duh…?

39.  This is not an exhaustive list, anything else that comes up along the way needs to be dealt with efficiently by the captains

a.       Obligatory post so that Michael Pohling didn’t get further confused.

That’s the list as it is today.  One of my favorites got culled.  “Be prepared to lose 10 IQ points.”  I don’t know when this one got culled, but as much as it sounds like a joke it’s a very serious comment.  When you’re captain you get second guessed all day every day.  Suddenly every decision you make is criticized by whisperers in the dark.  When you think going to Easterns is a good idea and everyone is kicking and stomping their feet because you’re being an idiot and not thinking it through, or when you think that running gassers is a good idea and everyone rips on you for scaring away the rookies.  Even after 8 rookies from your captaincy make it to their senior year and get 13^th at nationals, most of them big contributors, you’ll still be teased for being an idiot.  When you’re captain it is inevitable that your team will think you’re an idiot at some point.  What you have to keep in mind is that you probably spent a couple days thinking about something and they spent all of 6 seconds knee-jerking to it.  Take your time, make a choice, believe in it, and most importantly don’t panic.

Being a captain requires a huge effort.  The frustrations of power v. the plebs is magnified by the fact that you’re trying to lead your peers.  However, it is worth it.  Good luck to the captains of 2016.