how to be a better coach/captain

[phathom]

I was captain of USC-Upstate for 4 years... a long long long 4 years...

Choosing how to a run a team depends on a few things:

1) The type of members you have (motivated, driven, competitive) and how much work they want to do

2) how much power do you have, are you a captain but there is a president as well? Is there a coach who overrides you? (at upstate I worked with a coach, although I still had final say)

3) What are your goals to the team. I promised my team I would take them to gold when we had never been to a national competition, we managed to go to gold twice and silver once... so it worked out... (if we hadn't they might have killed me )

Once you have established all of this you can get an idea of what you have to work with and what you want. If your team only wants to meet once or twice a week then let them know what kind of goals you can expect to give them. If they push to three practices a week then show them what that can do for them.

Ego's I wont even comment on, I have one, and most people on my team do. I am willing to say about 95% of all mockers have them... putting them aside for the good of the team is the only way you can expect the team to work. Everyone has to learn how to get passed them, try channeling them towards other teams. Create a school ego if you need to (although it can make you look bad), find a way to unify everyone.

Oh and welcome to being a captain, it is truly a thankless job, but if you are driven to do it than it is an experience you will never forget.

[Rane]

Thanks for the thoughts

I actually spent the whole year as a captain. But there were definitely things that could have gone better from the beginning. And although things went a little more smoothly later on during the year, I still feel that the extra bit I should have been able to bring to the table would have given us that one extra point and tipped the scales into sending us to nationals.

I've primarily been curious how most other successful programs run their relationships between mockers to captains, and mockers/captains to coaches.

Thanks again.

[Blackbird]

Thanks for the thoughts

I actually spent the whole year as a captain. But there were definitely things that could have gone better from the beginning. And although things went a little more smoothly later on during the year, I still feel that the extra bit I should have been able to bring to the table would have given us that one extra point and tipped the scales into sending us to nationals.

I've primarily been curious how most other successful programs run their relationships between mockers to captains, and mockers/captains to coaches.

Thanks again.

We have elected student Co-Presidents, who are elected at the end of each year.  At the beginning of each season, they both assign teams and appoint Captains for each team.  No Coach, really.

[DesertClassic]

Give all the power to a coach, a grown-up with no vested interest.  That's the best advice I can give anyone.

[phathom]

Give all the power to a coach, a grown-up with no vested interest.  That's the best advice I can give anyone.

I disagree... but It might be because of my previous position 

[Hova]

Give all the power to a coach, a grown-up with no vested interest.  That's the best advice I can give anyone.

I also disagree. Given the amount of time and effort a coach must put in, there is no way that he can never have a vested interest. They inevitably and understandably develop friends, favorite, and foes. And once students have ceded power to that administrator or coach, it is VERY difficult to recapture.

[Herb]

I also disagree. Given the amount of time and effort a coach must put in, there is no way that he can never have a vested interest. They inevitably and understandably develop friends, favorite, and foes. And once students have ceded power to that administrator or coach, it is VERY difficult to recapture.

I can speak on this having been in both positions now.  I started out as the captain of a team in a program without much in the way of attorney coaches.  Our educational coach would set the rosters, but a lot was left to the students and if we lost students we usually did the recruiting to replace them and made the personnel decisions on our own team.

When I graduated, we shifted to a hybrid student/coach program that vests complete competitive authority in the coaches during the year.  The first year was more difficult for me as head coach because I was trying to run a program whose leaders were all people I competed with, but we also had only 8 people returning (down to six eventually), so the "favorites" were the people we needed to lead anyways.

We won't be totally free of people I competed with until next year, but all it took was one year of coaching for the ties of competing to be completely eroded away.  It was really tough to make some of the decisions I had to make, because of those ties, but not as tough as it would've been if I were a student. 

Maybe it's because the coaches vote on things as a group, but I think we didn't ever let any personal biases get in the way.  We always did what we thought was in the best interests of the program, and any personal biases we did have would be counterbalanced by the fact that our 7 coaches (6 after Z left to return to Arizona) would all be inclined to have different favorites and goats which would cancel each other out.

Prior to that, we had 1 coach, but mostly the program ran itself, and there was a lot more petty infighting,  duplicity, and favoritism in the old system than there is now.   I've really got to agree with Jimmy, but trailered with this one caveat:  Every program is different, and what works for one program won't work for another.  If student run works for you guys, more power to you.  If our program had been entirely student run last year, I really think some of our mockers would have been capable of taking the life of their fellow students.

[MT4e]

At the end of the day it really is very different for each program and sometimes it changes year to year based on the people who are on the team.

Usually we try to make teams based on good looks and sexual favors performed. That's been working out nicely, especially for the captains. 

I strongly recommend this strategy for every program. I'm pretty sure UVA does the same thing. How else could you explain the high attractiveness level?

But to each their own.

[mocksluzer]

I despise the idea of a totally coach-controlled team, but that could be due to the situations I've encountered in the past. We've never had a coach that was familar with AMTA or Mock Trial prior to coming to coach for us. This has had devastating consequences, the most often of which revolve around a coach thinking they're doing something good for us (in a legal context) and actually harming us in the Mock Trial context, as the two differ as often as they converge, truthfully. From a competitive standpoint I would say it depends on the circumstances of the program as to who should make the decisions; from any other POV suc has educational or logistical it shouldn't matter as much.

[Nonsensical]

I despise the idea of a totally coach-controlled team, but that could be due to the situations I've encountered in the past. We've never had a coach that was familar with AMTA or Mock Trial prior to coming to coach for us. This has had devastating consequences, the most often of which revolve around a coach thinking they're doing something good for us (in a legal context) and actually harming us in the Mock Trial context, as the two differ as often as they converge, truthfully. From a competitive standpoint I would say it depends on the circumstances of the program as to who should make the decisions; from any other POV suc has educational or logistical it shouldn't matter as much.

I agree; it depends on the program.  There's a big difference between a coach that knows about college mock trial and one that doesn't.  Every school has a different system, and I don't know that there is only one way to do it to make it better.

[The Gelf]

I agree; it depends on the program.  There's a big difference between a coach that knows about college mock trial and one that doesn't.  Every school has a different system, and I don't know that there is only one way to do it to make it better.

I would imagine that the assumption is that you do have a coach who knows what he/she is doing.  If the coach is a terrible coach, I imagine EVERYBODY would agree that ceding a large amount of power to such a person is, um, misguided.

[mocksluzer]

It's not exactly that the person's a terrible coach; in fact, they could be a good coach, giving you sound advice on how to perform a CX, for example. The issue is that, while they may be a good coach, they're either coaching the wrong things or simply don't understand the system. I've encountered that every single year as an undergrad. with three different coaches in three years, none of whom had any idea about MT before joining SLU. My question is, how do you ask/suggest/tell a coach that they basically don't know what they're doing and they shouldn't be running this program in the wrong direction?

[The Gelf]

It's not exactly that the person's a terrible coach; in fact, they could be a good coach, giving you sound advice on how to perform a CX, for example. The issue is that, while they may be a good coach, they're either coaching the wrong things or simply don't understand the system. I've encountered that every single year as an undergrad. with three different coaches in three years, none of whom had any idea about MT before joining SLU. My question is, how do you ask/suggest/tell a coach that they basically don't know what they're doing and they shouldn't be running this program in the wrong direction?

It's never easy to tell somebody that they're not working out, regardless of the situation.  I'd say tell them exactly what you wrote.  They've taught you a great deal of useful stuff about the law and even trial practice, but it's just not working in the weird, fictional world of competitive college mock trial. 

I'll say this though.  Coaches are freaking hard to find.  If somebody is willing to work with you full-time and actually is good at something (like teaching crosses), it's probably a decent idea to keep them on board in some capacity, if they're willing to not be the top dog.

[Chris_Hitch]

At the end of the day it really is very different for each program and sometimes it changes year to year based on the people who are on the team.

Usually we try to make teams based on good looks and sexual favors performed. That's been working out nicely, especially for the captains. 

I strongly recommend this strategy for every program. I'm pretty sure UVA does the same thing. How else could you explain the high attractiveness level?

But to each their own.

You dog, you.

We use a system where the executive board has virtually all of the decision-making power, with heavy coach input. The head coach is a voting member of the E-Board, but assistants are not. We've found it works for us, but you've got to have the right kind of coaches, who offer their advice but aren't so wrapped up in it that they demand every decision goes their way. We've been blessed in that regard, but with the right safeguards, you can protect against coaching despotism.

[Herb]

Coaching despotism is the best kind of despotism.