Setting up team for success & dealing with internal issues
Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2018 9:48 pm
So, at the moment I'm a high school quiz bowl captain in need of some serious advice. Just for context's sake, I'm from a small school (K-12, around 100 students in all of the grades). Due to that, I obviously have a very small team, or to put it more specifically, if one of them is sick before a tournament, we're dead meat. I'm entering tenth grade along with the rest of my team. Last year, I was very enthusiastic, spending basically my entire summer studying for quiz bowl. However, now I'm more apprehensive. The first reason is that I was originally very ambitious about my team's future. Unfortunately, most of my team mates were not very interested in hard-core studying. That would, of course, be fine if we were in a bigger school, because then they could relax and enjoy the atmosphere of the B-team. However, as my school is really small, we need all hands on deck. Due to this, at tournaments we've ended up in a rather lopsided situation with regards to scoring. I and one other person on my team (I'll call him M for anonymity) have both been getting power in our respective categories. Otherwise, our team has been falling apart. So I suppose my first question is how to motivate the other members of my team to study, so we can be a successful group.
My second issue is M. As I mentioned earlier, I was originally ecstatic at the possibility of high school quiz bowl. I was jumping for joy when our coach appointed me as captain. I didn't expect the problems that followed. It turned out that M wanted to be captain. Instead of telling me about it, he started creating friction in the team. I only found out when I accidentally heard him arguing with our coach about it. The real problem is that M might be the more popular member of the team (it's an all-boy team, except for me). Due to that, I've been wondering if I should give him the captain's position. After all, being captain isn't really a big deal--what really matters is to do what's right for the team. However, M is fairly disorganized in the school environment, and has faced being taken off the quiz bowl team before due to that. I don't want to risk that situation if he's captain. Also, I'm worried about what actions will follow, should he become captain. I was captain of our team in middle school (just for context, it was a local-level quiz bowl team playing at a local annual arena tournament). Our teacher signed us up for another small-scale arena tournament in a different county in eighth grade, and seeing that he wanted the captain's spot, I talked to the teacher in private, and she assigned it to him. The end result was that he demoted me, and didn't recognize any of my answers, resulting in our almost getting second place in the tournament. I talked to the coach, and he told me not to give up the captain's position, and that M is going through a phase and it'll get better. Still, the team is having serious issues and M is making it worse. I also worry about getting him angry, as he's the only other good player on the team, and if he leaves, we're dead. It's gotten so bad that I'm considering quitting quiz bowl, which I really do not want to do (it's the only academic club in my entire school), and I still want to compete in it--just maybe not with the team mates I have now.
Does anyone have any tips on how I should handle M? Should I give up my captain's position? And also, how can I help my team succeed? And just for fun, does anyone have tips on attracting new members without being nerdy to the point of scaring away people?
My second issue is M. As I mentioned earlier, I was originally ecstatic at the possibility of high school quiz bowl. I was jumping for joy when our coach appointed me as captain. I didn't expect the problems that followed. It turned out that M wanted to be captain. Instead of telling me about it, he started creating friction in the team. I only found out when I accidentally heard him arguing with our coach about it. The real problem is that M might be the more popular member of the team (it's an all-boy team, except for me). Due to that, I've been wondering if I should give him the captain's position. After all, being captain isn't really a big deal--what really matters is to do what's right for the team. However, M is fairly disorganized in the school environment, and has faced being taken off the quiz bowl team before due to that. I don't want to risk that situation if he's captain. Also, I'm worried about what actions will follow, should he become captain. I was captain of our team in middle school (just for context, it was a local-level quiz bowl team playing at a local annual arena tournament). Our teacher signed us up for another small-scale arena tournament in a different county in eighth grade, and seeing that he wanted the captain's spot, I talked to the teacher in private, and she assigned it to him. The end result was that he demoted me, and didn't recognize any of my answers, resulting in our almost getting second place in the tournament. I talked to the coach, and he told me not to give up the captain's position, and that M is going through a phase and it'll get better. Still, the team is having serious issues and M is making it worse. I also worry about getting him angry, as he's the only other good player on the team, and if he leaves, we're dead. It's gotten so bad that I'm considering quitting quiz bowl, which I really do not want to do (it's the only academic club in my entire school), and I still want to compete in it--just maybe not with the team mates I have now.
Does anyone have any tips on how I should handle M? Should I give up my captain's position? And also, how can I help my team succeed? And just for fun, does anyone have tips on attracting new members without being nerdy to the point of scaring away people?