After attending the first session of captains training, sophomore volleyball captain Makaila Winward reflected positively on her experiences.

“I was the youngest fall captain and I think it was a really good building for the years to come to be a captain,” Winward said. “It was really fun. I liked hearing all the different points of views everybody had.”

Winward said that she took away a lot of information about leadership from these meetings.

“I think (the meetings) really just taught me how to be a leader, even though I was already elected captain, but these meetings really helped you lead the team and get everyone involved,” Winward said. “Leadership isn’t something you’re born with, it’s something that you have to work at, too.”

Meeting leader Kevin King said he wanted to teach the students about leadership, culture, physics and trust.

“The main ideas we covered were, we wanted to talk about culture, the culture of a team, who creates culture, and we wanted to focus on the physics of leadership,” King said. “Things that when people are moving in the same direction and believing in the same things.”

According to King, sometimes captains are unprepared to be good captains, so these meetings were set up as a way to help them succeed.

“A lot of times captains, especially in athletics, are chosen, sometimes because they are popular, it could be because they might be the best players on the team, but often times we have found that they don’t necessarily have the skillset to be a leader, they don’t have all the education to be a great leader and so (that’s) what we are doing for them,” King said.

According to junior football captain Adam Bauer, the meetings taught him of his influence on younger athletes.

“We learned a lot about what a brotherhood is and how it works. We learned a lot about how the relationships with the younger kids, and how everything you do as a captain really matters to the younger kids and it impacts how they think of you,” Bauer said.

Winter sports captains meetings began Nov. 30.