Fall sports select new captains
Teams choose different ways to appoint next year’s captains
November 11, 2016
After fall sports come to an end, changes in team captains bring anticipation for athletes who envision next season.
According to the girls’ cross country head coach Rachel Hoffman, coaches have no say in who takes on the role as captain(s) next year.
“Kids already voted last week, and they’ll find out probably in a week or so,” Hoffman said. “It is all runners vote. We don’t vote.”
Junior and captain of girls’ cross country Megan Perkins said she agrees with the student-based process in which new captains are chosen.
“I do think it’s fair. It helps rule out favoritism by coaches and I think it’s where people on the team can actually put in their opinion and say who they want and who they don’t want,” Perkins said.
According to senior girls’ tennis captain Natalie Lorentz, athletes must submit an application to be a captain before being elected as a nominee.
“Once our season ended we were supposed to go to coach (Tvrdik’s) room and she has this ballet that you can fill out,” Lorentz said. “The people that want to be captains can fill out a sheet about why they want to be captains. Then the girls are supposed to go in once we have our nominees and pick what ones they want for captains.”
Lorentz said she has no problem with the way new captains are chosen for the team.
“I think the team should choose because obviously they are the ones that are going to be affected by it the most,” Lorentz said.
On the other hand, according to boys’ soccer coach Chato Alvarado, coaches have some say in the process of choosing captains.
“I let all the players in the program choose the captains,” Alvarado said. “The one thing I have to say is we know all the grades for all the players, so if I see that one of the players wanted captain and he’s not doing well in school, then I would just override that. Then myself and the coaches will choose a different captain.”
Junior Anthony Brandel, a boys’ soccer captain, said he feels confident in the coach having the capability to pick the captains.
“I think the coaches have a pretty big say in it usually and I think that’s pretty justified because the coaches know a lot of the players in the program really well,” Brandel said. “I think they should be the ones to pick.”