Abstract
Being captain of any team is a significant and prestigious position. In elite sport, the captain plays a vital role in both team and organisational leadership. To date there has been minimal research investigating captaincy, and none assessing the impact of regularly losing performances. A captain of a women’s national basketball league team participated in an in-depth, semi-structured interview reflecting on her experience during a losing season. Following Schutz’s (1967) framework, a social phenomenological analysis approach was taken, with seven higher-order themes emerging: being captain; relationship with coaching staff; relationship with teammates; team development; stressors; stress management; and self. Results suggest that while poor results affect all team members, there are increased levels of stress for the captain. The captain is expected to lead by example and avoid external expression of negativity. Further strains are placed on the captain, as they are the conduit between coaching and playing groups. As a result, the captain needs to have good support networks, from a variety of sources, to cope and minimise the impact on personal performance.
Highlights
Captains play a vital leadership role within team sport settings
Most captains are selected based on their fit for the team [2], and their role is perceived to be highly important for team success in professional sport [3]
To date there has been minimal research into the experiences of captaincy, in women’s professional sport, and no previous study has investigated the challenges and pressures that are placed on a captain when team performance is below expectation
Summary
Captains play a vital leadership role within team sport settings. They are a formal, designated leader of the playing group and an important liaison between the team members and the coaching staff [1]. Despite increased research on leadership in sport settings, Cotterill and Cheetham [3] noted there was still limited research on the captain, their role, and the challenges they face, at elite level. This may be due to the complexity of the captain’s role, which has lacked clarity and varies greatly between teams and sports. Mosher [1] identified three key components to the captain’s role: (1)
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