Thursday morning before school, captains and team leaders from our various winter sports teams assembled in the cafeteria for a Captain’s Corner session.
Athletic Director Andy Englert began offering these sessions this year as a way of helping Avon athletes chosen as captains of their respective sports team build leadership skills.
“My hope for these Captain’s Corner sessions,” said Englert, “is that our team leaders walk away with a better understanding of their own strengths as leaders and some tools for how they can bring those skills to bear with their own teams and teammates.”
Englert led Thursday’s sessions with Jaclyn Morgan, a Ph.D candidate at Roberts Wesleyan University who’s interning with our district’s psychology department this year.
“We focused on leadership and how the captains can best lead their teams,” Morgan explained. “They used a golden circle to organize their team values, then talked about how each of their individual leadership styles contributed to the success of the team.”
Kate G., a senior captain on Avon’s varsity swimming and diving team, said it can sometimes be difficult to act as a leader - especially because her teammates are also her friends and classmates.
“You go to school with them every day, so motivating them in the pool outside of school and being a leader to them while they're the same age as you can be hard,” she said. “I think leading by example’s a good way to do it. If you put all your effort in at practice, younger kids will see you doing that and understand ‘OK this is how you practice.’”
When issues do arise among teammates, it’s important to understand how each tends to handle criticism and tailor your approach appropriately, said Josh H., a junior captain on Avon’s varsity boys basketball team.
“Each teammate handles it differently,” he said. “It just depends on who they are.”
Addison U., a junior captain on our girls varsity basketball team, said when conflicts arise, it can be helpful to remind everyone of the reason they’re at practice in the first place - to get better as a team.
“At least on our basketball team, there's a lot of emotions and feelings people have toward each other,” she said. “Sometimes, people get frustrated with each other so dealing with it and making sure everyone can get along at least when we’re practicing so we can play as one is important. Sometimes, just putting it to rest at least for practice, saying ‘Enough’ can be useful, you know?”
Looking forward to the remainder of their seasons and to the upcoming spring sports season, Kate, Addison and Josh all expressed a desire to help raise their teammates’ level of intensity - especially during practice.
“I feel like I work pretty hard in practices but I think I could do a better job of bringing everyone up to the same intensity every day,” said Josh. “Getting that consistency out of everybody
“I think that would help us a lot,” added Addison. “I mean our record is like 4-15, so I think if we practiced a little harder, we could probably improve that.”
Photos courtesy of Andy Englert
Avon sports captains and team leaders are pictured during a Captain’s Corner session Thursday morning,