Building a Water Polo Captain

"Because there are no predetermined solutions to problems, [sic] leaders must adapt their 

thinking, formations, and employment techniques to the specific situation they face. This 

requires an adaptable and innovative mind, a willingness to accept prudent risk in 

unfamiliar or rapidly changing situations, and an ability to adjust based on continuous 

assessment."

 - Foreword, Army Leadership ADP 6-22

Many of coaches talk about the delegation of responsibility they give to their team captains: 

"When a captain tells you to do something he speaks for the coach"

But, when do your captains actually speak with your vision? Usually, this is the last expression of delegation a coach will ever give to players. As a coach you should be delegating a portion of your practice to be run by your captains. Your captains need opportunities to practice their leadership skills every day. Coaches should provide the guidance, tools, and feedback necessary to build daily improvement. This will pay dividends in games when your captains are authoritative in executing your plan. 

College coaches are not exempt. Your captains and seniors are moving into the real world. These skills are not only essential but will benefit your players the rest of their lives. If you, or the assistant coach, are running warm-ups, conditioning, or basic drills by the second week of practice you are wrong. Coach staff should be correcting individual technique and coordinating team strategy. Captains should be enforcing proper repetition and pace. If ROTC college seniors are qualified to lead men into combat your players can run the first 45 minutes of practice.

First, establish a precedent for your captains. Give them a few orders to execute such as organizing team stretching and having everyone in the water at a certain time. If players are still on the deck, pull the captains out and hold them accountable (usually push-ups, make it hurt). Show the rest of the team that the captains are the conduit between the coach and the rest of the team. Essentially, the captains should be doing the heavy lifting, and yelling, during the mundane portions of practice.

Second, bring your captains into the daily planning of the the practice. Have them stand with your assistants as you disseminate the plan for the day. What is the conditioning plan, what is the major focus of the practice? Are there any recommendations from the captains based on play the previous game? Let them feel their input is important in building the team.

Third, talk only to your captains. This is the hardest step. Stand over your captains and give them the next drill. No yelling, no loud talking, just a normal conversation. If players are lost when the drill starts pull the captains over and ask why. Are they leading the drill or expecting inexperienced players to know what to do? Captains should be vocal and learn to relay any information you give to them. Again, this will pay dividends in crucial game situations. In ROTC, the leader is given 10 minutes to accept, develop, and disseminate a formal operations order to their subordinates prior to leading a 90 minute mission. Your captains will be fine.

My leader expectations are straightforward: 

• Communicate—up, down, and laterally; understand the practice
• Build agile, effective, high-performing teams 
• Empower subordinates and underwrite risk (playing creatively)
• Develop bold, adaptive, and broadened leaders 

Your captains will thrive with the latitude you have given them. I usually transition my next year's captains/seniors the last week of season to give the current seniors a chance to focus on enjoying the end of season. This also gives the juniors a taste of what is to come.

I have trained men who have seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Building water polo leaders is easy but still equally rewarding. Many players have committed significant portions of their lives to play water polo and, as a coach, you should enable them to lead men in this short profession as well. Your captains will never resent you because you let them lead.

"The fastest learning occurs when there are challenging and 

interesting opportunities to practice leadership with meaningful and honest feedback 

and multiple practice opportunities. These elements contribute to self-learning, 

developing others and setting a climate conducive to learning."

- Page 9, Army Leadership ADP 6-22

Creating a Water Polo Practice Plan, Part 2

Previously, we looked at creating a daily water polo practice plan using backward planning based on identifying a tactical goal for the practice. In this post we will look at the other two parts of overall planning by creating a mid-term (operational) and seasonal (strategic) plan. Refer to Creating a Water Polo Practice, Part 1 for guidelines and terminology.

Your weekly plan should take into account your total available pool time, dryland time assigned to the week, and games scheduled. Let's look at three common situations: Hell-week, pre-league weeks, and league weeks. Create tactical goals that will build throughout the weeks and can be supported by your pool schedule and player experience. Sessions can be broken down into conditioning, water polo skills, dryland, weightlifting, scrimmaging, and any smaller combination of these parts.

Hell-Week 1: Usually 5-6 days of practice with 1-2 sessions each day.

1. morning: weightlifting, evening: conditioning
2. dryland, conditioning
3. conditioning, water polo individual skills
4. weightlifting, conditioning/individual skills
5. conditioning, group skills
6. group skills, center-based offense

H-week 2

1. weightlifting, conditioning
2. individual skills, zone-aware offense
3. conditioning, press defense
4. group skills, zone defense
5. counterattack, scrimmage/6-on-5

Now lets look at a non-league week. This will usually consist of 5 practice days and 2-3 morning sessions. It can also include a non-league game or Friday/Saturday tournament.

1. conditioning, set offense
2. counterattack, zone defense
3. conditioning, 6-on-5/5-on-6
4. game warm-up, zone-break offense, after-goal situations
5. Game/Tournament

League weeks usually are the last month of the season and are broken up with two games separated by practices days. This creates a challenge to build a consistent plan but also allows coaches to make adjustments after games to build on skills for the next game. A sample week includes:

1. conditioning, defensive schemes
2. league game
3. counterattack, offensive schemes
4. league game
5. individual and group skills, after-goal situations

The end of the week is a good time to reinforce fundamental skills. Players are tired and more focused on the weekend. Drilling individual and group skills depends less on tactical thinking and more on mechanics and a limited number of actions. If your players are broken-down from the week their performance in team skills and scrimmages will probably be poor and inefficient, frustrating both players and coaches. Know their limits and plan recovery days that allow for mental recovery.