Building a Team

by Karol Crosbie

“Athletic performance is an art. Go and watch great athletes perform— look at their control on the ground and in the air—they’ve spent hundreds of hours perfecting that skill. A great athlete can control his body as well as a dancer. You watch J.C. Romero, with his bat in his hand—he’s an artist—a genius!”
Al Van Wie ’52, Wooster athletic director, 1974-1991

Pete Meyer '87 (right) coaches the Florida Southern Moccasins.

But if you had 25 Romeros, would you necessarily have a team? You would not. Just as you would not have an orchestra with 100 virtuosi, nor a dance troupe with 50 prima donnas. Building a team is, of course, the name of the game, but foolproof strategies are hard to come by. It begins at the recruitment stage, when coaches use both subjective and objective measures to choose their team members.

For example, when Brenda Meese ’75, Wooster’s assistant athletic director and field hockey coach, watches an outstanding high school player, she pays special attention to how the athlete advances the ball down the field. If the player consistently carries the ball on her stick, rather than passing it to another player, she might not be the right player for the Wooster team. Coach Meese explains: “It tells me how that person’s inner dynamic works. Does she consistently carry, when the options are there for three people around her to receive the ball? If she passes, does she pass out of strength or out of weakness? Does she pass because she’s panicked, or because she sees her teammates and sees other options? I value team play, and I think that a passing team can be a great group of individuals, because they can do more.”

Sometimes that certain team building je ne sais quoi is more subjective. Pete Meyer ’87 remembers the time he took his wife to a high school game to see an outfielder who had committed to playing for Florida Southern College, where Meyer is head baseball coach. “As the players jogged out to the field, I asked my wife if she could identify the player we had chosen. She nailed it. It was about how he carried himself, his presence.”

When Jerry Hammaker ’89 is recruiting, he often recalls his swim coach at Wooster, Keith Beckett (currently the College’s athletic director). “I remember sitting with Keith on the bus after a meet, and how frustrated he’d be when talented players didn’t work hard. So when I recruit, I recruit for attitude. One way to discover attitude is by talking with parents and watching how kids interact with their parents.”

Eric Bell '92 coaches the Florida State women's soccer team.

Once student athletes arrive on campus, coaches build team spirit and competitiveness through tough, intensive inter-squad drills. “Bonding occurs because they’ve gone through it together,” says Seth Duerr ’00, Wooster’s football defensive coordinator. The leadership and modeling that young players see in their more experienced peers is also essential to team building, he says.

Agreeing upon and committing to a goal is essential, say the coaches. “Getting a group of men or women to strive for the same goal, regardless of what that goal is—if you can do that, then you have teamwork,” says Van Wie.

Team building comes from blood, sprints, and tears, but it also comes from cool analysis. Eric Bell ’92, assistant coach of women’s soccer at Florida State University, teaches a course on leadership, where class members learn about the five ways that a team can become dysfunctional. He ticks them off: Lack of trust, fear of conflict, inattention to results, lack of commitment, and avoidance of accountability.