[Pin]

Do we have many captains on the forum? What about people who've watched captains and thought about what they do well, or badly?

I'd like to captain a team some day, and I was thinking about how I'd do it.

What qualities are important in a captain?

What things have you seen captains do well, or badly?

[FASTLARRY]

Been there, done that, its a lot of work and pain, but its worth it.

You need to be a leader, not a follower to be good at this.
I was always a boss, a sales mgr, so all I knew, was running and controlling people. So this was easy for me, I already had all the training.

[Pin]

To be honest I'm probably not a natural leader, but I'd still like to give it a go.

I know someone who is very successful as the captain of his team, but he takes the veiw that he doesn't especially want to be captain and if anyone else wants the job he's happy for them to take it on.
I'm not entirely sure whether that's really true though!

I've seen someone else who wasn't a natural leader, who wasn't really successful, for different reasons, but seemed to hold sufficient authority to do the job.

I think it helps if nobody else wants to do the job themselves, which is plausible in a pool team, and there's nobody else in the team who is *more* of a natural leader than you are.

[Demondrew]

Pin, on Jun 19 2010, 04:31 PM, said:

To be honest I'm probably not a natural leader, but I'd still like to give it a go.

I know someone who is very successful as the captain of his team, but he takes the veiw that he doesn't especially want to be captain and if anyone else wants the job he's happy for them to take it on.
I'm not entirely sure whether that's really true though!

I've seen someone else who wasn't a natural leader, who wasn't really successful, for different reasons, but seemed to hold sufficient authority to do the job.

I think it helps if nobody else wants to do the job themselves, which is plausible in a pool team, and there's nobody else in the team who is *more* of a natural leader than you are.

I've been just a player, a team captain, a tournament director and a league operator. The last three require two things in abundance patience, time and organization. (Yeah I know that's three.) If your the team captain be sure each practice session has a purpose. Different drills, different patterns out, etc. Keep a log of who does what well and just as importantly who does what poorly. As a TD be first and foremost honest, not only with your players but with yourself. Know your limitations and get help where you need it most. As a LO be as well versed in your rules as possible. Know if you have someone using the rules to sandbag, remember you are the final authority. And don't be so concerned about the individuals in this instance it's the league you must do what is best for. In this role I have been very popular and very unpopular for doing the same thing. That was removing a member from the league for sandbagging.

YOU set the tone whether you are a player, a team captain, a Tournament Director or a League Operator. Others around you will follow your attitude. Leaders have one thing in common they believe in their people, the mission and themselves.

Good luck,

Andy

[FASTLARRY]

Pin, on Jun 19 2010, 04:31 PM, said:

To be honest I'm probably not a natural leader, but I'd still like to give it a go.

I know someone who is very successful as the captain of his team, but he takes the veiw that he doesn't especially want to be captain and if anyone else wants the job he's happy for them to take it on.
I'm not entirely sure whether that's really true though!

I've seen someone else who wasn't a natural leader, who wasn't really successful, for different reasons, but seemed to hold sufficient authority to do the job.

I think it helps if nobody else wants to do the job themselves, which is plausible in a pool team, and there's nobody else in the team who is *more* of a natural leader than you are.

When I was a sales mgr, or capt of my team, I was sure, there was nobody that could do a better job than me. I would tell them, look, either follow, lead, or get out of my way, do one of the 3. Its like a football team, there can only be once coach, every decision is not open to discussion. Weak leaders produce losers.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/...e_lombardi.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpBKzjkpX0Y...feature=related

Watching this is so painful, to relive it, I was there in the ice bowl, it was so cold, I thought I was gonna die, and I had a very large bundle on Dallas, with nice odds, and I came home broke. I bet on them against the pack twice, and what I learned, was the player with the most talent, or ability does not always win, the one with the biggest heart, usually does. Never bet againt a big heart.

And the pack came to me, and to my team, the Chiefs, so of course, I got long odds and put a bundle on my home town, and they broke my heart again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq8zGCOi0hQ...=1&index=41

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=I0ZOzf62L9k

Max McGee broke my heart.

Then finally, my home town won it all.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=GGVEAsOXWlM

[CocoboloCowboy]

I played in a LEAGUE one night once, it was a bad thing. Drunks, Loud Music, Crap Equipment, a Pig Pen,and Karaoke!

[FASTLARRY]

CocoboloCowboy, on Jun 20 2010, 11:12 AM, said:

I played in a LEAGUE one night once, it was a bad thing. Drunks, Loud Music, Crap Equipment, a Pig Pen,and Karaoke!

FL SAY:...................Some is like that, some is not.

I kept my Vegas team playing at the top pool hall in Atlanta at the time, the Green Room, we were on 9' tables with simonis and 4.5" tight pockets. When the bar box boys came in to play us, they had no prayer on our big tight equipment. Once we qualified to go to Vegas, I would change the team from a pool hall based one, to a traveling one, and I picked the circuit closer to midtown, which went into the worst dives in town. We would have at least one knock down drag out clear the deck fight once a quarter when we beat some biker and these animals would go beserk on us. I always set over in the far corner, back to the wall, with a Louisville Slugger bat, nobody would come near me. I let the young ins duke it out, if you came after me, I dropped you like a bad habit.

I wanted them to get used to all this noise and BS, so it did not bother them, and to bad conditions, as this is a bar league and nationals are on bar boxes. I would find out what cb they were going to use in vegas, and buy one for each team member, he had to carry it around and only use it, so he got used to it and knew what he could and could not do with it. A capt, is like a general going into a battle, he must prepare his troops and plan ahead for victory. You dont just show up and hope for the best. If you do, and ran into me, I ran thru you, like shit goes thru a goose.

[CocoboloCowboy]

Bar Pool Sucks, Bar Pool Leagues Suck more IMHO!

[FASTLARRY]

But some like bar boxes, they have average skills, dont like to practice, and they play better on a sloppy pocket 7' table than they do on a 9' tight pocket.
Many small towns have nothing but bars with 7' tables.

Different strokes for different folks holmes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDn91_7qioY...feature=related

[RoyZ]

I've been playing on some snooker tables lately and an interesting thing about them is that they are hard to scratch on. Bar tables, on the other hand, are very easy to scratch on - requiring you to really think about the cue ball path. I find the thinking aspect to playing on bar tables to be underemphasized.

[FASTLARRY]

RoyZ, on Jun 20 2010, 03:32 PM, said:

I've been playing on some snooker tables lately and an interesting thing about them is that they are hard to scratch on. Bar tables, on the other hand, are very easy to scratch on - requiring you to really think about the cue ball path. I find the thinking aspect to playing on bar tables to be underemphasized.

You have to learn how to rack and break, get a good spread, move half the rack up table, if you leave them all down table in clumps, its a mess, God could not run out.

This is how I teach the break.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=fp-p1JvqXqM

[Pin]

The problems within a team I've seen captains create have generally come from their selection policy. Here there's no handicap system so the captain can pick whoever he wants.

I've seen teams run where the captain will normally try to pick his strongest team, which has created small-ish problems over the course of a season, depending on the personalities of the people regularly turning up and not playing. I think over more than one season though, you'd struggle to keep the peripheral players in your squad, and they you're hurting yourself on the nights you find yourself short of players.

I've also seen teams with rotation policies, where losing your games for 2 weeks means you're dropped or losing one week means you might be dropped. The general impression I've had of these teams is that they often seem to do well, towards the top end of the table, but often not quite competing to win things. I don't know though - it's possible that's a bit unfair. But the truth is the more your weaker players get to play, the more points you're likely to be dropping.

Discretion seems important too. If you exercise discretion in breaking the 'rules' of your selection policy occasionally (giving a weak player who wasn't scheduled to play an easy opponent to help build their confidence, or dropping a winning player who played badly but got lucky) can be a good thing. It strikes me that your players should be aware in advance that it might happen occasionally.

But I've seen players dropped on a discretionary decision sulk a bit, and there's the scope to create disharmony within a team that way.

I think you have to tread carefully.

[Pin]

I'd like to keep this thread alive, so I can drop all my thoughts on the topic in one place.


At tonight's match the captains of both teams knew and trusted each other, so we agreed to play without refs. However, in one game the two players still got into an honest disagreement about whether a foul had been committed - just different interpretations of what had actually happened on the table.

Both players would have been happier with a ref making the decision, even if they felt he had got it wrong, than having to give way to the other player.

I think it's generally better to have refs, even when there are no trust issues.

[Pin]

Another thing I noticed tonight interests me.

As captain, you have responsibility for stepping in when the other side are a little out of order - e.g. sharking, 'coaching', general behaviour.

I imagine dealing with such situations might be difficult in some circumstances.


Making things more complex, some players can be very sensitive to behaviour that others might see as normal acceptable banter and fun.


I imagine there's a minefield. If you try to please everyone it is surely likely you will fail sometimes. Further, your objective probably shouldn't be to please everyone at all. Perhaps your obective should be to take a sensible approach balancing the two needs.

I'm not going to propose answers at this stage though. Just raise the questions.


(That said, this probably isn't the bread and butter of being a good team captain, but it might be one of those things that can create problems within a team if you get it wrong.)

[Pin]

Last thought for the day:

Following the disappointment of England's poor performance at the world cup, some people have been questioning the way youth football (soccer) is run in this country.

Their complaint is that at every stage of youth soccer, everything is all about results and winning. There's no attention to development of skill etc etc.

So youth teams teach their players to play long balls forward from the back, then press the other team, instead of passing and opening a team up, because at that level the simple long ball strategy works. The problem is it teaches players bad habits and doesn't allow them to develop skills trying the harder things.

Similarly, teams often pick players based on physical size and stamina before skill, because those traits are more useful in the short term, so a lot of talented players with better long term prospects slip through the cracks, and those that get selected find skill isn't as important a factor as it really should be.


I think it would be nice to run a pool team on a balance of principles - performance (results), learning (skill development) and enjoyment. (I stole the 3 criteria from Tim Gallway.) How much of a sacrifice would be required from pure performance and results is an interesting issue. It might be the case that you'd have to pay a price, or it might be that your long term results would actually be better for it.

I'd like to find out.



Last last thought.

At the world cup, John Terry, England player and former captain with a natural drive to be a leader, made some comments to the press about dissatisfaction with the England manager, and how the players were going to demand changes.

From the outside, it looked like very strong leadership.

But in fact, he didn't have the backing of the players, and when the manager intimidated him by talking of him making a 'big mistake' (I guess some people can do this with more gravitas than others), Terry quickly backed down.

So in fact it wasn't strong leadership at all. It was a strong *try* at leadership, but it fell flat on its face: there was no actual leadership and even if there had been it would have been squashed by a bigger leader.


I don't know exactly what this tells us about leadership, but I think there's an interesting lesson there. I'm not 100% sure what I should learn from it though.

[FASTLARRY]

The only way to lead a successful team is to be a total dictator, totally in charge, like sadam or vince lombardi. It cant work as a democratic thing where every one has input. That is how you run a hippie commune. That is why the Rooskies were so successful in the Olympics in years past. You win, or you go to the gulug to dig coal in your new life.

[astetsoncowboy]

I've been asked to captain a team but since I've only been with the APA just under a year and it being my first overall experience with organized teams (for me, pool was always a one on one, mano y mano thing) and with the limitation of being able to only post a total of 23 in skill level/handicap, I still do not fully understand the strategy of posting what player to what match so I've declined the request to captain but have been co-captaining a little in an effort to learn the strategies.

From my observances of both my 8 ball and 9 ball captains, I know there are times when you are walking on clouds and times when you're looking for the nearest exit.

My 8 ball captain is one skill level lower than I am and IMHO really nothing more than a ball banger with the mentality to slap 'em hard and hope they fall somewhere. I've yet to actually see him apply any real skill and he's been in APA for 12 years. This sort of unsettles me in that he's a banger but more than likely he has found his peak and comfort zone and he has no further desire to move up in skill. To give him credit though, most of the time his strategy in posting seems be fairly decent. but in IMHO....he's really not much of a leader personality and he has no qualms about stating, asking, implying that you should lose a match on purpose.

My 9 ball captain is a level higher and can be a good shooter when he plays. He doesn't play that often as he doesn't want to go up either. But, he is quite the social butterfly in that he's constantly moving around the crowd to socialize and drink his beer. Rarely does he really pay attention to any of the matches. For his credit, he seems to do a really good job at posting but if you find yourself in need of a timeout, he's either too involved in gambling, socializing, or whatever to really care to provide any insight on how to bail yourself out. He just lets you dig yourself out or lets you dig your own grave. A leader with questionable tactics.

My insight to this? If you're going to captain, be a leader. A leader that takes full responsibility on how you post your players. Whether they win or lose is irrelevant as we all know there are good days and bad days. Pay attention to how your players are doing. It's ok to grab a pint, a bite to eat, socialize a little, but most of your attention needs to be focused on what is going on at the table your team is playing on. Be ready to offer advice, opinions, and assistance if a team mate calls a timeout.

I truly admire Fast on how he has produced his winning teams in that he had organized practice sessions on bar boxes, 9' tables, etc. just to keep his troops battle ready at a moment's notice. Neither of my teams have any incentive at all to get together for organized practice so in an effort to stay somewhat in stroke, a couple of nights a week, I go over to a few players homes that are actually on opposing teams to mine and we play head to head if there is an odd number or we partner up and play scotch doubles if there is an even number. Funny thing is that this particular group with me included seems to grow a little every week. Currently, I'm the only that does not have a home table so I'm forced to commute to their homes but neither they nor I seem to mind that. Right now there are 3 homes but a few more people will be joining us and that will increase the number of tables.

We are actually all considering dropping from APA because of the major issues with sandbagging and considering starting a home league.

[FASTLARRY]

75 to 85% of golfers can't break 100 on a regular basis, and dont care. For them, its a fun day, away from the ole lady, toss a 6 pack in a cooler on the back of the cart and go behead gofers.

You have that same mentality in the pool leagues, not every one is driving to go up and get better. Look around, how many of them do you know hu have had professional pool lessons. Most hit a 5 level and that is where they level out at.

[Pin]

So what do you do about this with your team - Do you captain in a style that accommodates the less ambitious players or do you try to build a team with people who do want to improve?

[FASTLARRY]

Pin, on Jul 3 2010, 08:27 AM, said:

So what do you do about this with your team - Do you captain in a style that accommodates the less ambitious players or do you try to build a team with people who do want to improve?

Ah so Grasshopper, U C problem, you cant have both, U must choose, one path, or the other.