A successful team that I was a part
of was my high school cross country team. The team was comprised of around
fifty girls ranging from freshman to seniors, and the distribution through
grade I would estimate to have been pretty equal. Our coaching staff was made
up of one head coach, an older male teacher at the high school, who did most of
the delegation of workouts and rules. We also had an assistant coach, a newer
and younger female teacher at the high school, who would often times run with us.
I think that our coaches complimented each other very well and created a
welcoming atmosphere that encouraged success, even though we were often pushed
to our physical limits.
One of the reasons our coaches pushed
us so hard was because the competition was pretty tough in our area.
Stereotypically speaking, Illinois is a very competitive state for running and
produces many successful runners. I know this because when I was in high
school, I was very curious about where Illinois stood in relation to the rest
of the country and would look up top times from other states. I’m not sure
where this success was first derived, but since competition drives more
competition, there are continuously very successful runners, and therefore fast
times, coming from Illinois female high school students. That being said, my
school was a pretty competitive and accomplished cross country program.
During my three years on the team,
we won conference championships and had members run in regionals, sections and
state competitions every year. However, it isn’t the accomplishments, in terms
of times and awards, that I would attribute my team to being successful. I
would say that I was a part of successful team due to our demonstration of reliability
and commitment to one another, willingness to help and use of constructive
communication from top to bottom. I think that the structure of my team had a
lot to do with this.
Relating my team’s structure back
to chapter five of B&D, I can see relations to multiple of the basic
structural configurations mentioned, but most closely to the simple hierarchy. I
think the simple hierarchy best matched the structure of my team because there
was in a sense a hierarchy of powers with my coach having the most power
because he had the most experience coaching high school girls cross-country.
The next one in power was the assistant coach, who, although didn’t enforce
rules, was still a superior and had great experience as a high school and
college runner and afforded us the opportunity to learn from her experiences.
When I envision a simple hierarchy as explained in the chapter, I see one
person at the top, being my head coach, then stemming down to another boss or
superior, being my assistant coach, and then stems down to multiple people,
which would be the girls on the team. I think it’s a perfect representation of
how I remember my team being structured as a whole unit.
Additionally, another structure
that I think my team resembled was the circle network. Something I haven’t
mentioned yet was that beyond having a head coach and an assistant coach, my
team also had five team captains, all of which were seniors. This subgroup of
captains I believe were structured more as a circle network, because they
ranged in leadership styles, personalities as well as performance on the team.
Together, the captains functioned more in a circle network structure, all
exchanging their opinions with one another, and were seen as one cohesive unit
to the rest of the team.
Finally, I mentioned that I thought
my team was successful because of characteristics, including commitment and
communication, from top to bottom. By that, I mean that every girl on the team
was an integral part of the group. My coach made it very clear that whether you
were running world-class times or were just happy you made it through the race
without walking, your spot on the team and your voice was important and it was
all of our responsibilities to keep one another in check to being a good
teammate beyond just the times you ran. Because of this, I would say that this
idea of check and balances from top to bottom would resemble the all channel
network
Finally, I think that the reasons I
described to be why my team was a successful one fell rather in line with the
six distinguishing characteristics of high performing teams that Katzenbach and
Smith's discussed in the chapter. Two of these distinguishing characteristics
outlined are a common commitment and that everyone is collectively accountable,
which are both attributes that I mentioned already that I believe my team
possessed. Another characteristic is having the right mix of expertise, which I
also think we possessed due to having an older, more experienced coach with a
lot of wisdom as well as younger coach who was relatable and could share her
experiences as a high school and college runner, which I believe was a perfect
complement.
Before commenting on what you said, let me ask some things about what you didn't say. Did you like to run just for fun before you were part of the cross country team? Do students get asked to be on the team because some coach sees them run and thinks they have potential? Or do students simply want to be on the team and any student who shows up is then on it in some way?
ReplyDeleteThen you did say there were about 50 girls on the team. But you didn't tell us how many of them would race in a track meet. Were some alternates? Or did they all run at each meet?
You also did talk about leadership some and mentioned the student captains, but you didn't talk at all about the talent of the runners. Let me offer up a naive alternative that you can knock down in your response. Your team was successful because you had very good runners. It was that rather than the teamwork that mattered in team performance. (I don't know this, I'm just advancing it as a possible alternative.)
Now one last production function sort of question, which is about the role of practice and performance at meets. Did you witness any of the girls improving remarkably over time? Or were the best runners as sophomores also the best as seniors?
If practice is important for performance and if practice is sometimes drudge work, then the commitment you talk about might be understand as a way to make practice effective. Is there some other way that that the commitment and communication matter?
Finally, are there relay races in cross country or is it all individual races? How the team concept works in an otherwise individual sport could be expanded on some.
I did understand your point about the coaches being the bosses in the hierarchy. Were the seniors who were not captains treated the same as juniors, sophomores, and frosh? One might guess that the more experienced girls would have a bit more responsibility, even without a formal title. Was that the case?
And since this came up when we chatting about your blogging:
distractors - complemented instead of complimented, all of whom instead of all of which.
Before joining the cross country team, I wouldn’t say that I ran for fun. Growing up, I had always played soccer but decided to quit after my freshman year season. From playing soccer for so long, I became very good at running without even realizing it since it was masked with the idea that I was playing the game of soccer, and I wasn’t as focused on how far I was running. The reason that I decided to join the cross country team was because many of the friends that I had met my freshman year of high school were on the team, so they convinced me. I wouldn’t really call it being “asked” to join the team, nor do I think that anyone ever really did get asked. I know my coach saw a lot of soccer girls and knew they had potential, but recruiting people to voluntarily run 5-10 miles a day and then race 3 miles every weekend was pretty tough.
DeleteWhen it came to the girls that were on the team, there were some “alternates” as you put it, but for every meet before regionals, every girl got to run. For example, I often times was one of the first alternates for the varsity team, which was only allowed to have 7 runners. Beyond that, there were junior varsity and freshman/sophomore heats in every race that allowed unlimited amount of runners per school competing, so every girl on the team had the chance to participate.
I tried to mention that the team captains ranged in talent levels, some being consistent varsity runners while some would be at the back of the junior varsity pack, but I can explain it further. I think that by my team having captains that ranged in talent was a great aspect of the team. When I started out my sophomore year, I wasn’t an immediate star for the team and needed a lot of practice at racing three miles to become good at it. Even then, however, I saw the girls that were captains then and saw that it wasn’t the talent that mattered to become a captain; it was the attitude and dedication to the team. The seniors in general were those we looked up to, because, as you mentioned, they earned a bit more responsibility from their experience even if they didn’t have the title of being a captain. Indeed, we did have some very good runners on my team, but I think that my team and my coaches would’ve deemed us successful due to the culture that we built and the pride we had even when we had “bad” races.
Practicing for cross country is absolutely essential, and I don’t think that you would find a runner or a coach out there that disagrees. The effort that you put into the sport shows in your times, and remarkable time improvements are definitely possible. My team would actually have a reward every year at the end of the season for the most improved team member, and every girl that won it was always one of the hardest working girls on the team, even if she wasn’t on varsity.
Finally, as you mentioned, cross country is often times seen as a somewhat “individual” sport, since there aren’t relays and you are running out there alone. I could see how someone who hasn’t experienced the sport would think this. However, once you are a part of a team, you truly know that when you are running a race, you aren’t running for yourself but for your team because your time and place in the meet matters to your team’s score. We would have a saying on our team that the time doesn’t matter, only your place does, which put much more emphasis on the team than your own achievements.
I really enjoyed you post, I always was one of those people who thought cross country was an individual sport, but after reading your post I see how it can be viewed as a team sport. The team as a whole can not win without your individual score being better then the competition, so at the end of the day it is very much a team.
ReplyDeleteWe had a lot of similarities within our posts, we both talked about the hierarchal structure within, and it was quite similar. I wanted to ask you if you had only one assistant coach? On my basketball team we had two that were assigned specific tasks, and they both played major roles in the success of my team. The head coach obviously had the most prominent role as far as coaching but at the end of the day what is the most important is the competitors themselves, which were us.
Sorry, I just saw this comment! I somewhat answered your question about the assistant coach in my comment on your post, but I'll put it here as well. For my cross country team, specifically, we only had one assistant coach. I think this was because the entire team was doing the same tasks. We didn't have an offense or a defense like in basketball or football, we all had the same goal of running three miles.
DeleteNow, I was a member of the track and field team as well which had one head coach and many subsequent assistant coaches. We had assistant coaches who were in charge of long distance runners, sprinters, pole vaulters and jumpers. I think this set up definitely aligns better with your basketball team's structure with the idea that each assistant coach had specific "tasks" and played a major role in their subgroups performance and experience.