High School How To Be A Good Captain

[Fierceforever <3]

Hi Ya'all! I know there is already a thread on "Captain" (which I made) asking about how to get captain. I made Captain and I need some advice. First off, Thanks to everyone who commented and gave me advice on how to become captain. I took the advice and applied it to practice. Hard Work really does pay off!!! I am really excited because I love cheerleading soo much and I really commit to the sport and being a Captain has always driven me to do more for my team. As the Captain, I don't want to just be "captain". I want to be there for everyone in cheer and outside of cheer if there having problems because I've been cheering almost my whole life and always wanted a Captain like that (which I never had). Please please PLEASE give me any advice for a new Captain. I've never had this experience. Tips on how to handle certain situations and how to control the team without being bossy. Also, if you have any game ideas to have a good team bonding experience. Thanks so much! <3 (:

 

[cheerheart4life]

Saw that you made this a separate thread! Here are some of my tips:
Always stay positive! Don't act like you are telling them what to do. Just simply suggest.

At games, be the one to yell and cheer a lot! Make a sheet with a list of chants y'all do and keep it near you at the games so you can remember them. Try and do some stunts and incorporate the crowd a lot.

Plan team dinners and activities like random ice cream treats after practice or tie dieing! Pool parties and cook outs are easy and fun too. Have sophomores bring hot dogs, juniors hamburgers, freshman drinks and desserts, and seniors plates, napkins, and anything else!

At school, try and match on game days. You probably wear your high school uniform! For spirit week, try and dress up the same on one day of the week! Twin day would be cute(:

Remember to make the football players little goodies like goodie bags and handing out things like water at games, or serving them breakfast later in the season.

Plan a team bible study! (my fave!) and every Wednesday, have a different lesson or bible quote that you share with the team.

Make a cd for game days an competition days that will pump y'all up!

I'll put some more (:

 

[Fierceforever <3]

Saw that you made this a separate thread! Here are some of my tips:
Always stay positive! Don't act like you are telling them what to do. Just simply suggest.

At games, be the one to yell and cheer a lot! Make a sheet with a list of chants y'all do and keep it near you at the games so you can remember them. Try and do some stunts and incorporate the crowd a lot.

Wow this is great! Thanks so much! (:


Plan team dinners and activities like random ice cream treats after practice or tie dieing! Pool parties and cook outs are easy and fun too. Have sophomores bring hot dogs, juniors hamburgers, freshman drinks and desserts, and seniors plates, napkins, and anything else!

At school, try and match on game days. You probably wear your high school uniform! For spirit week, try and dress up the same on one day of the week! Twin day would be cute(:

Remember to make the football players little goodies like goodie bags and handing out things like water at games, or serving them breakfast later in the season.

Plan a team bible study! (my fave!) and every Wednesday, have a different lesson or bible quote that you share with the team.

Make a cd for game days an competition days that will pump y'all up!

I'll put some more (:

 

[Fierceforever <3]

Saw that you made this a separate thread! Here are some of my tips:
Always stay positive! Don't act like you are telling them what to do. Just simply suggest.

At games, be the one to yell and cheer a lot! Make a sheet with a list of chants y'all do and keep it near you at the games so you can remember them. Try and do some stunts and incorporate the crowd a lot.

Plan team dinners and activities like random ice cream treats after practice or tie dieing! Pool parties and cook outs are easy and fun too. Have sophomores bring hot dogs, juniors hamburgers, freshman drinks and desserts, and seniors plates, napkins, and anything else!

At school, try and match on game days. You probably wear your high school uniform! For spirit week, try and dress up the same on one day of the week! Twin day would be cute(:

Remember to make the football players little goodies like goodie bags and handing out things like water at games, or serving them breakfast later in the season.

Plan a team bible study! (my fave!) and every Wednesday, have a different lesson or bible quote that you share with the team.

Make a cd for game days an competition days that will pump y'all up!

I'll put some more (:

Awesome. Thanks again!! <3

 

[FamousxMindset]

Friendships are forgotten during practice.
Step if you see see anything you can help with.
Stop any and all social networking drama you see involving the team direct or indirect.
Be respectful to all cheerleaders no matter if you like them are not.
Congrats, and good luck!

 

[cheerforeverever]

These go for any leadership positions:

You never want to make them feel like you're bossing them around, but you also can't just give them free reign on every decision. Therefore, it helps if you give the group two options in certain situations, so the girls feel like they are the ones making the decision, yet you are the one steering the decision over all.
Example Scenario: You are deciding on what color bows to wear to practice.
-Free Reign would = "I want purple. no I want green. No, no rainbow!".......it'll go on forever without anyone making a decision because there are infinite choices
-Bossing would = "We're wearing baby pink, and you better like it"
-Suggested way = "Okay guys we can wear either blue or yellow bows. Which one would you like?"

Also, make sure that you are communicating with everyone on your team, not just the girls you are closest to. It's easy to gravitate towards the girls that you are just naturally friends with, but you never want to exclude someone or make them feel as if there are cliques on the team. Teambonding helps with this. The girls need to feel comfortable enough to contact you if they ever have questions or concerns, so be open and accessible to give answers (make sure the girls have your phone/email/facebook,,etc. and that you have every single girl's number that is on your team). Plus, the more you know about your teammates, the better you understand how to handle them. Some girls will need to be pushed a bit or they'll slack off.....others will put the pressure on themselves and may need a more encouragement based tactic or they'll stress themselves out. It just depends on the kid. Example: If you know a girl is a "chronic fake illness" case, you don't let her sit out because she's "sick/her hand hurts/etc etc etc" as she is always "sick". It's truly a mental thing. When another girl that is always giving %110 percent and never wants to sit out says she is sick, she may actually need to sit out because you understand that she must be truly very sick.

That's what I remember off the top of my head. I'll think on this and write more possibly tomorrow if I find captains class stuff somewhere in my staff backpack from a few years ago!:)

 

[GForce]

Dont try too hard, if that make sense, girls will see that and think you are being stuck up. When the coach asks something be the first one to do it (like if she says ok girls go to your opening spot), always be helpful, but you cant seem bossy about it at all. As long as you are genuinly nice to people, im sure everything will be fine. Also set the example for people (smiling stuff like that). On competition days, you could have everyone over at your house the morning of to do your hair and make up and so team bonding. or do the same before a game. You could also host a team bonding sleepover, after a game is always a good idea. Just be you :)

 

[xomckenzieee]

When I was captain, a big part was extra communication. My coach would tell me okay everyone needs to be game ready by 6, I would text that out and deal with making sure kids were where they needed to be, taking some stress off my coach.

 

[AScheer]

Remember you are not the boss, just a leader. Lead by example, and watch the tone in which you say things!

As a coach who did away with captains because of drama the biggest piece of advice I can give you is this - the way you are is what got you that captain spot, not the way you become. Keep doing what you're doing. So many of my captains let it go to their head and got on power trips / became bossy. I picked them because of the way they were before the captain title, had I seen that whole other person they became they would never have gotten chosen!

You can also find issues that you think the team has and try to lead them to fix them. For example if cliques are an issue for your team, really focus on including everyone, sitting together, and team building things.

Try to keep them involved - it's their team too, and let them know they can suggest ideas to you. Never reject their idea outright. If its not a good one you can tell them that you'll think about, talk with the coach about it, etc, but by shutting them down right there they won't want to approach you again in the future. A simple way for them to contribute is to have a dress up practice every once in a while and let each girl suggest a dress up theme. You could do this in lots of ways, that was just an example.

 

[cheergal900]

I agree with all the posts above. Also, there's a difference between a captain and a coach and I see some captains that fail to realize that. You can encourage the girls, start cheers at games, make suggestions, etc. but not try to run the show. Just be nice, positive, full of spirit, be yourself, and I'm sure you will make a great captain :)