A Good Captain Makes a Good Team

This Year Hermes High School’s Lacrosse Coach named four Seniors as Team Captains, including Conrad and Bruce. Over the years I have watched these boys on Philip’s Team grow up. It has been nice watching Bruce grow from being the star player to being a true leader. But the beacon of great leadership on the team this year is unquestionably Conrad.

Nicknames and a Big Cheer

Winter break is over and basketball season has officially begun. This season I am coaching my third grade daughter Chloe's team, MONSOON. I picked up the girls' uniform tee-shirts at the Hermes Recreation Office and took them over with me to the first official practice of the year. Each girl wanted to be the first to pick her number—limited of course to the correct-sized tee-shirts. I used one of the practice drills as a contest to determine what order the girls would get to pick their numbers.

The first two selected their tee-shirts quickly: 11 and 7. As I worked to get the tee-shirts to the rest of the team, the first two began chattering feverishly within my hearing, but not my attention. Suddenly number 11 spoke up. "Coach! Coach! I'm HOT DOG and she's BIG GULP! Get it? Seven-Eleven!"

Immediately the energy level and enthusiasm spiked to a new level. The remaining players all wanted a team nickname to match HOT DOG and BIG GULP. Chloe quickly claimed STARBURST and the whole team agreed by cheering her on by that name. So I gathered them up and gave them three simple rules for nicknames.
Rule #1: The player must want the nickname enthusiastically.
Rule #2: Her teammates must likewise enthusiastically accept her having that nickname.
Rule #3: I, the coach, must approve the nickname.

Throughout the rest of that day's practice nicknames were all the girls could talk about. I vetoed SHOOTER because it sounded too much like labeling one player as the star of the team. A talented but rather melancholic third grader requested CRANKY. I reluctantly approved only after her mother told me that it was the nickname her daughter had embraced in the previous soccer season. The rest struggled and I promised to help them all pick nicknames at the next practice.

I'd also promised we'd have a Team Cheer and many of the girls were ready with ideas. One girl presented some lines with a hip-hop beat. Another suggested making a howling wind sound while saying "Mooooooo-onsoon!" Others asked for references to their nicknames. Chloe wanted the cheer to end with "Let's go!" It was a little overwhelming to get all their ideas, but I promised to compile them and have a draft of the cheer ready for the next practice.

That was my homework the following evening. I compiled a list of pre-approved nicknames to help the girls who hadn't settled. The cheer was a little tougher to arrange. I went to bed still thinking about the cheer and woke up with it in an orderly enough state to put it in writing before the rest of the family was awake. On the same sheet of paper, I put the roster and the game schedule and printed seven copies for the afternoon's practice.

Practice was mainly about getting them ready for their first game, but I made certain to deal with the nicknames and cheer effectively. JAGUAR, ROCKET and PINTO were what the remaining players wanted for themselves from my list of recommendations and their teammates rapidly approved. I had to fend off several unwanted nicknames directed toward me, including HUBBA-BUBBA and DIESEL. In the end, AQUAMAN is what stuck. Finally, the cheer came together with a hip-hop beat to the full satisfaction of these third and fourth grade girls.

One, two, three!
We got names; we got names; we got names that strut our games!
We're loud; we're proud, like a storm from the Swelling Blue Deep!
We play, every day, and here's what we have to say!
Mooooooo-onsoon! Let's go!

Years from now HOT DOG, BIG GULP, STARBURST, CRANKY, JAGUAR, ROCKET and PINTO probably won't remember many details from their games and even less from their practices. But they'll almost certainly remember their nicknames and the MONSOON Team Cheer for the rest of their lives. I know AQUAMAN will.

The Joy of Coaching

I became a coach the way—no doubt—many, many parents have before me. I checked the box on the soccer registration form that volunteered me to be an assistant coach for my son’s second grade soccer team. Then one evening in August 2002, I came home to a voice mail message asking me to be the Coach of my son’s soccer team. Apparently, not enough parents had volunteered to coach. After a few cajoling sessions on the telephone, I had made the commitment. And so began my first of many seasons coaching. And while the first year was a little tough, I do not have any regrets. I’ve now coached three seasons of boys’ soccer and two seasons of girls’ soccer. I was the assistant coach for my son’s first lacrosse team and am now the coach of my daughter’s first basketball team.

I am particularly looking forward to this coming basketball season. I’ve got seven eager third and fourth grade girls, including my daughter Chloe. At least half of the parents are willing to get involved. But it is more than that. The game of basketball is what really appeals to me as a kids’ recreational sports coach. Between rebounds and the small number of players on the court, basketball ensures every player touches the ball many times throughout the game. And while there is still the opportunity for a strong athlete to develop into a star player, a star player is unlikely to develop into a ball hog. The double dribble rule keeps even the star players passing the ball.

We’ve now had just two practices. It is the first basketball season for all but one player. Most of my players still need to look at the ball in order to dribble it. Everyone favors dribbling with their right hand over their left hand. About half the players cannot throw the ball high enough to reach the standard height net in the gymnasium where the first two practices have been held. Fortunately, they’ll have a 9-foot basket set up for actual games for at least the first part of the season. As I look at them, the team has all the trappings for the plot of a made-for-TV movie.

I’ve found that coaching puts me in an interesting place. Each season, I get to be there for a ten to twenty week window of life for a handful of kids who are not my own. I end up playing a role in their development unique from teachers, parents and other family. I remember my coaches and how they spoke. Somehow they could get away yelling in a way nobody else could. Words that have no business being funny somehow sound hilarious when the coach wants them to sound that way. Words that would sound clichéd in any other context somehow serve as the greatest source of inspiration.

I love watching kids’ sports much more than college or professional sports. There’s just more of a chance for a sudden breakthrough or an unexpected error. And if I know one or more of the players on the field then the game becomes personal to me. With kids’ recreational sports, players who had been on the same team one season end up being rivals playing for different teams in another season. And when I coach consecutive years, the players I once coached remember me and I remember them.

While I treasure each game, my favorite part of every season is the awards ceremony. Some coaches are satisfied to give their players the trophies or medals provided by the league. Not me. The awards ceremony gives me the unique opportunity to create a customized award certificate for each player. Each season I have a Most Valuable Player, Team Captain, Most Improved Player and however many other unique titles are needed to fill out the team. Each certificate contains a few words of unique praise - “for her unsinkable determination …” - to memorialize each player’s season. I dress the certificates in a frame with team colors, a team logo, a gold seal, my signature as head coach and at least one other official signature.

My hope is that the framed certificates will be something from childhood my former players will retain far into adulthood to fondly remember the ten to twenty week window we shared together during which they knew me as Coach.