Reputation
I feel that in almost every aspect of my life I have
developed a very strong reputation, whether the reputation be good or bad, it
was very strong. I believe this comes from my personality. I have been known to
have a very big personality, and I always make it my point to be heard. I
believe that this comes from me being the youngest of three boys in the family;
where the older two excelled greatly in sports, and were much larger than me, I
had to find my own way to excel, so I became the vocal one who tried to command
every room that I stepped in. this way of life led me to have a very strong reputation
in many different ways, in some facets many people enjoyed me and my
reputation, and in others they did not.
What I want to bring up with my reputation is my time
playing lacrosse. I played lacrosse since 7th grade and for my whole
high school career. Sophomore year I was the starting goalie on our JV team,
not necessarily from skill, but because nobody in their right mind wanted to
play goalie. I had a reputation of the go getter on the team. Not the hardest
worker, but a huge team player. This was because I had the hardest position,
and I never complained about it, I was doing this for the team. Every opportunity
that I could to spend time with my teammates I did this, and it led to a lot of
great friendships that I wrote about in a previous post. I ended up being named
captain of our team and this led to mixed reviews. I was named captain because I
was the kid on the team who knew everyone the best, and who demanded the most
from everybody. I knew how to crack everyone up and get them relaxed the night
before a game, knew how to get them pumped up before the game, and knew how to
address the team after a loss. I was the captain not because of my athletic
skill, but because I was a leader mentally. This led to a short term fallout
with some of the players on the team because there really was a lot of kids on
the team who were much better players and deserved the captain spot over me. Many
of the kids that I was named captain over went on to play division 1 lacrosse,
and were also great leaders. Though some players didn’t like me for this, other
players, even those older than me felt that I was the best leader on the team
because I never let anything come in between our team. I wouldn’t say that
there was a time that I “cashed in” my reputation, but during the championship
game of our end of the year tournament I ended up yelling at one of the
defenders when the opposing team got a game winning goal. I say this because It
was a lapse of judgement and was a time where I lost my temper. To be fair
everyone had kind of lost their temper and there ended up being a fight at the
end of this game with the other team. Though I did yell at a team mate I apologized
after and me and him are still very good friends to this day.
After everything was settled nobody was really mad, but some
players were upset with me and the coach because they believed that they were a
better leader, but I believe that I showed that you don’t need to be the best athlete
to be the best leader, but you just need to be a good friend who understands
what people need.
Who choose the team captain? Is that something the other players have a say in or is it something the coaches decided on their own? I can imagine a player being unhappy with a coach's decision, but not being able to express that directly. If that's right, might the players who were not happy with you as captain but were really good cashing in on their own reputations?
ReplyDeleteI don't like to use examples in the heat of the moment - people can depart from rationality for a variety of reasons, some of which we've explored in our class. But if you've been instructed ahead of time to keep your cool and you failed to do that, then perhaps there is some cashing in on that.
the coaches of the team picked the captain. the players didn't really have a say in this issue. the coaches watched how we interacted throughout the preseason practices and made their decision by the time of the first game. i do believe that some players were not happy, and had also not expressed themselves to where i could not tell if they weren't happy. i also believe that the "heat of the moment" is kind of a cop out, but when it comes to the captain of a team i think that it should be viewed differently. for us, this was the end of our season, and we ended on a loss. this led to the team being very upset, and instead of me being able to be the backbone of the team and comfort the loss, i was just as worked up as everyone else.
DeleteWere you also the captain for your varsity teams? Or were you ever captain again for the same group of players? I find it strange that your coach would be upset with you after he had been the one to select you as the captain. I understand other players being upset because they may have possessed more natural skill than you, but leadership is a skill in itself and if you had the ability to lead as you stated.
ReplyDeleteI feel that in sports building a reputation is important to gaining the trust of both your teammates and coaches. Especially if you were captain, you had to prove yourself to be reliable and dedicated otherwise you wouldn't have been chosen.
ReplyDeleteFor players that were unhappy with you being chosen as captain, I agree that they are cashing in in some sense. They know they will not become captain so maybe the extra effort they were putting in previously will not continue. I would imagine that most of them were still committed to the team and its success without being overly salty.