We us both an application and interview process for selecting team captains. Candidates must also get recommendations from their teachers, and then they appear before a panel of interviewers. This is going to teach them job interviewing skills and all that goes with it such as dressing up in a professional manner. The panel consists of myself, assistant coach, returning captain and a teacher outside of the athletic department. We gave out some interview tips that we found online. They have until the middle of March to pick up their applications and final selections are made at the end of April.

Once selected they are required to attend ten "Captain's Leadership Training" sessions which are held once a week for no more than an hour each. We do a book study of The Team Captain's Leadership Manual. This works really well and I even use it as a lesson in my business classes.

We sometimes invite all of the team captain candidates to the leadership training sessions and make them Assistant Captains. The Captains wear a "C" on their warm up sleeve and the assistant captain(s) wear an "A". We are looking at developing leaders of tomorrow and the best wrestler does not always equal the best leader. The people that will be Assistant Captains are a tad too young (maturity wise) right now. If we could train them they may be able to move into the Captains position before next year. Frequently a lot of maturation takes place over the summer.