First Platinum Sparta award winners talk captainship

 

Q:  What is your general leadership style as a team captain and what personal qualities do you have that promote this style of leadership?

Mike Destache: “My style of leadership is a more personal and friendly style. I believe that a captain should be able to relate well to the other athletes and be more of a friend than a ruler. Being younger than most captains gives me the ability to do this well.”

Nick Hoffmann: “I think that my leadership style has changed from sport to sport. During Football I let Sam Carlson be the team’s vocal leader and I became the lead by example type. For Hockey I switched to a much more vocal role on the team, still keeping the lead by example, being the only D-man who was a captain. For baseball, it’s much more of a vocal role than in any of the other sports.”

Q: If you had co-captains what was their leadership style and did they conflict or work together with yours?

Mike Destache: “My co-captains are usually more mature than me which compliments my own style well because it allows a balance between logistical work and supporting the athletes.”

Nick Hoffmann: “Each of my co-captains has had their own style of leadership and I would usually adapt to what the team needed as far as leadership, and I don’t remember having any conflicts with the other captains.”

Q: How did your leadership affect your teams and were they affected differently?

Mike Destache: “My leadership affected the teams by bringing them closer together and making the environment more relaxed. On the sports I participate in it is important that there is a lot of enjoyment and that they are not taken too seriously otherwise they become very unappealing.”

Nick Hoffmann: “For each captainship I had to assume a new role dependent on what the team needed, so if my team was affected, then I hope that it was in a way that made them wasn’t to push for that extra yard, or back-check a 3 on 2. Football Hockey and Baseball are such different sports it’s hard to really compare how a team is affected by its leader especially with how many kids we have coming out for a certain team compared to another (Hockey v Football)”

Q:. What does the Platinum Sparta Award mean to you and what does it mean to your teams (if anything)?

Mike Destache: “I enjoyed receiving the Platinum Sparta award because it meant a lot to be given the same award as someone like Nick Hoffman who is one of the better athletes at SPA.”

Nick Hoffmann: “It doesn’t really mean that much to me, and I can’t imagine it really means that much to my teams either. It’s just another piece of paper, what really matters is that my teammates placed enough trust and respect into me in the previous years to allow me to lead them in the future, and if I was able to make the team better because of it then that’s all that really matters.”