Ultimate Teammate, Ultimate Captain
October 1, 2012
By Jed Blanton
MSU Institute for the Study of Youth Sports
What does it mean to be a team captain?
When I was in high school, our team captain was the best runner. There was no vote, no question. The best runner after the team time trial took over for the year. They led stretches, told the freshmen what to do, and did their best to stay in front of the pack.
And that’s what I did when I emerged first in our time trial. It was my team and my season now. The position was a status, a marker of my dominance, and a free pass to be a jerk. And I did it well.
When I went to college on a cross country scholarship, I was at the bottom of the totem pole again, and was nervous about how my captains would treat me and what a year it would be adjusting to college training and racing … while carrying the water and catering to our top runners. I wanted to be the fastest, so that it would be my team.
But in college, the team voted for our captains, and along with our coaches’ consensus, a leader was chosen. It wasn’t the best runner. Our team time trial had nothing to do with it. In fact, our women’s team captain didn’t even score for our team.
I asked one of the seniors, and one of the fastest runners, why these people had been chosen when there were several people faster. They answered simply, “They earned it, I respect them, and don’t mind being told what to do by them.”
I learned throughout the course of the year that the captain of this team had a lot to do, far more than I had ever done in high school ... when I thought I knew how to be a great captain.
When I earned the captain’s position on my college team my senior year, after a less-motivated try at captaincy my junior year, I had a completely different outlook on what needed to happen. For one, I wasn’t the fastest on the team anymore. An injury had prevented me from a successful offseason training regimen. But it was a new role and new challenge that I decided to have some fun and make my senior year memorable. But how could I make my team successful, even if it wasn’t by running fast?
That year I spent more time with the freshmen than I ever had, even more than when I was a freshman myself. I went to the dining halls, and invited them to my house for dinner. I went running with them on the weekends, and didn’t mind not being with the fastest guys on the team. I took an interest in our women’s team and how its training and experience was going. I went to study hall, which was an enforced weekly gathering for freshmen and anyone with lower than a 3.0 grade-point average, although I was about to graduate with honors and had twice been named “major of the year” in my department. I learned that being a captain was not a prize reserved for one person to selfishly hold. Being a captain meant being the ultimate teammate.
Since my college cross country days, I’ve spent the last six years in graduate school, researching and studying team captains. I’ve learned more about the position than I ever thought possible, but nothing I’ve read or discovered has been as powerful as seeing what it’s like to be respected as a captain. I keep in touch with far more teammates from my senior season than I do with anyone who graduated before me. Being a captain is far more than a title; it’s a calling. I whole-heartedly believe that anyone can become a great captain. They are made, not born. The difference is those who want it and those who don’t. Earning the captaincy position is not a status symbol, it’s not a recognition; it’s a job with a long task list.
The best captains I’ve met are the most organized, and also the most caring teammates. Placing the team before themselves is not the cliché; it is expected. And while I never was busier as an athlete than my senior year of college, I’ve never appreciated any other athletic achievement more than the friendships I made and the experiences I had leading my team through our season.
Blanton is a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University in the department of Kinesiology, specializing in the PsychoSocial Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity, and a research assistant for MSU's Institute for the Study of Youth Sports. He has served as a facilitator at MHSAA Captains Clinics the last three years and currently is assisting the association with its student leadership programs.
NFHS Voice: MLK Provides Reminder
January 22, 2020
By Karissa Niehoff
NFHS Executive Director
On Monday, the nation observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day for the 35th time. This annual remembrance of the civil rights leader and his remarkable efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to combat racism in the United States continues as one of the most significant days on the calendar every year.
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. in 1963 – one of the most iconic speeches in history – was the defining moment of the civil rights movement and led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made desegregation a prerequisite to school funding and further strengthened the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
As a result, separate schools for African Americans ended and King’s dream of equality for everyone began to occur.
Thanks, in part, to the efforts of King, who was a member of his school’s debate team at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, blacks and whites were assimilated in schools and in athletics and other activities such as speech and debate.
A few years later in the early 1970s with the passage of Title IX, girls – both white and black – were provided the opportunity to participate in high school sports. With this landmark legislation on the heels of the civil rights movement, high school sports and activities were for EVERYONE.
Amazingly, participation in high school sports increased from 3.9 million to 6.4 million in seven years between 1971-72 and 1977-78 – a jump of about 2.5 million. Why? The opportunity to participate was now available to all.
High school athletes – male and female, black and white and other races – began to work together and excel both individually and as teams. Many have seized these opportunities and had a profound impact within their communities and nationally.
In the past five classes of the NFHS National High School Hall of Fame, 13 of the 22 athletes were minority males and females, including the likes of Derrick Brooks, Dusty Baker, Seimone Augustus, Nicole Powell, Lisa Fernandez, Nikki McCray and Marlin Briscoe. Other females were Tracey Fuchs, Carrie Tollefson, Missy West, Joni Huntley, Jackie Stiles and Cindy Brogdon.
In previous classes, there were Ozzie Newsome, Chauncey Billups, Kevin Johnson, Janet Evans, Sean Elliott, Cheryl Miller, Archie Griffin, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Kim Mulkey.
Can you imagine the storied history of high school sports without these individuals?
Thanks to the efforts of many people in the 1960s and 1970s, there are more women and minorities in leadership positions today. Nine of our member state high school associations are led by minorities, including three females – Que Tucker of North Carolina, Sally Marquez of New Mexico and Rhonda Blanford-Green of Colorado.
Despite these advances in opportunities the past 50-plus years, the late Dr. King would be disappointed to hear about some of the disrespectful behavior in and around high school sports the past few years. Since our column in late October, we have heard of other racially-related incidents. Indeed, pain still occurs.
As we reflect on the tremendous efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to bring everyone together, let it be a further reminder that all student activity participants – regardless of race, religion, political views or gender identity – should be treated with respect.
Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is in her second year as executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the first female to head the national leadership organization for high school athletics and performing arts activities and the sixth full-time executive director of the NFHS, which celebrated its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. She previously was executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for seven years.