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One Word for 2015-16: Partnership
August 20, 2015
By Kevin Wolma
Hudsonville athletic director
One word. Every year before the school year starts I choose one word to help me focus on what is important and shed all the other clutter in my life. I try to choose a word that will help me in my professional and personal life.
The word I choose for the 2015-16 school year is partnership. After choosing my word, I realized the word partnership can further enhance our already strong athletic program too.
Often roadblocks are put up in athletic programs that do not allow the program to reach its fullest potential. This creates a separation within a program where all the partners involved detach themselves from the goals/values set by the organization. We see this in every organization, but this article is going to specifically discuss the partnerships between parents, coaches, student athletes and officials.
When I first started coaching basketball, I encountered a situation where parents were unhappy about what they thought was a reduced role for their student athlete on the team. He was a starter his sophomore and junior year, but the dynamics of the team his senior year required that I move him because he was one of my best offensive players that could help the second unit. He would play about the same number of minutes, but his role would change.
As a coaching staff, we believed this change helped the team and the student athlete by allowing him to use his strengths as an offensive player. He would have more opportunities to score than he would have if he was a starter. We were trying to do what was best for the team and individual but the parents did not see it that way.
Reasoning only made the situation worse as they felt he was entitled to start. They did not appreciate the fact that we were trying to give him more opportunities to reach his fullest potential. The parents went as far as starting a petition to remove me as head coach along with telling anyone who would listen how bad I was as a coach. This lack of partnership hurt our team. The student athlete complained openly to other players on the team, which created a negative atmosphere in the locker room, and the parents created a negative atmosphere in the stands. Needless to say that was a tough season to build a cohesive group.
This story provides insight on how one isolated incident can have an impact on so many other partnerships. The parent/coach partnership was strained along with the player/coach partnership. This inhibited the growth of the team to become the best it could because of the negative culture created. The parent/child partnership was also directly affected because the parents took on the role of an agent or defender and not one of a supporter or advisor. Just think if the parents talked to their child and said, “This is a great opportunity for you and your team. You could see a lot of benefit by supplying the scoring load off the bench. If this makes the team better, you should embrace it.” The outcome and season could have had an entirely different feel by handling the situation differently.
During the season there is going to be some adversity and “why” moments, but having an open and positive communication line with the coach and your child is the key to forming positive partnerships. You don’t have to always agree with the decisions, but how you handle the “why” moments will have a profound impact on your child and the team he or she plays on.
The other type of partnership that is not described in my story, but is becoming more and more fractured every year, is the parent/fan/official partnership. Last year I had a group of officials ask me to sit in the stands of an opposing team section because of how degrading those fans were toward the officials. On more than one occasion I had to talk to a group of fans and ask them to keep it positive. Most of the time they looked at me as if to say, “You can’t tell me what I can and can’t say.”
The one thing that people do not understand is that yelling at an official has no bearing on the game. An official has never changed a call based on what a fan has to say. In the last two years there has been a steady decline of officials leaving the profession and very few officials entering the profession. Do you blame them? Who wants to work 2-3 days a week and get yelled at for two hours.
Let's be different. To improve this partnership, let’s give them applause when the officials are introduced for each contest. After the game thank them for their time and efforts. I encourage anyone out there who has an interest in officiating to give it a try. You can have a powerful impact on student athletes.
Partnership is a very important part of high school athletics. I encourage everyone to make my word for 2015-2016 a part of your experience with high school sports as well. Together, let’s cheer on your teams and make this the best year yet.
Wolma has served as Hudsonville's athletic director since 2011 and previously coached boys varsity basketball and girls varsity golf among other teams. He also previously taught physical education and health.
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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.