My coach just announced our varsity soccer captains and I wasn’t selected. I thought I’d be the captain or assistant captain for sure since I’m one of 2 girls who has been on the varsity team all four years, but I was unfortunately badly injured over the summer and missed a week of practice. My coach basically told me that he selected the two reliable team players who would be able to make all of the practices and I think that was targeted towards me. He was like subtly attacking me for my injury…
I’m devastated because I have devoted so much of my life to soccer and to have my coach choose someone else because I got injured and missed ONE week of practice is really unfair. One of the girls he picked misses almost all the practices because of scheduling conflicts! I’m so sad I can’t even think straight. I have a few other leadership positions, but none are as big as varsity soccer captain. I was really relying on being captain to be one of my biggest points.
How much does it matter to be a varsity sports captain? Thanks!
There’s nothing you can do about it now, so there is no use worrying about it.
For the future, you may want to go to practice even when your injured. My D broke her ankle freshman year but still went to practice everyday. She obviously couldn’t participate in most things, but she could do some strength training and could help out with coaching some of the less skilled team members.
Decision is made so feeling sorry for yourself won’t change a thing. Move forward and have a happy and successful year. I’m sure it seems like a huge deal now, but in the long run it won’t matter one iota if you were captain of a HS soccer team or not.
That’s a disappointment for sure, especially because you were feeling sure it would happen. You probably don’t want to hear this but on life’s scale of disappointments, this is likely to end up a small one. The best thing you can do now is be a graceful loser. Play well. Be a leader on and off the field without the title. Help the new players. Support the captains. In other words, be an exemplary teammate. This kind of behavior will reap its own rewards. And you’ll be that much more prepared and mature the next time you don’t get what you were expecting.
(And it’s okay to be disappointed - just don’t act out on it or it will make the coach look right in his decision. )
We can’t control what happens but we can control how we react. Hang in there!
I was captain of both the track team and the football team, as a matter of importants even in an ego driven sport like football really meant nothing. If its your senior year play for you and your friends, youve got the experience, and im sure the leadership is there too. Try not to think about it too much. Its not the end of the world, personally I woulda rather been just a player and won a championship, then been captain and not won? I preffered winning than havinf a title personally. My advice do you, have fun, kick but, get selected as an all star and go from there, senior year is pretty much all about you, never let someone say otherwise lols.
It happens more often than not. Our teams voted at the end of the season. The coach put the candidate names up. It was based on effort and work ethic, so there were lots of surprises, but it was fair.
Enjoy your senior year without vindictiveness or animosity.
Play for fun! Be happy that you will have more time now that you can be a player.
The colleges care about longevity. You’ll be fine.
I was on our HS Varsity soccer team all 4 years. I thought I might be a captain, but I wasn’t.
But at that time, I didn’t know what leadership was.
In college, they started a women’s soccer team. I started help recruiting people and also helping people who weren’t as experienced in soccer (this was back in the 1980’s) learn new skills. I was actually leading/helping/coaching…I was named Captain.
So although to you, you are the most mature you have ever been, you may not show the leadership qualities they are looking for.
i don’t think being a captain will be the breaking point of your application to a school. if it is, you really should question why you are applying there if they are not holistically looking at your achievements. focus on other things, your essays, getting good letter of recs, etc.
Being captain of the varsity soccer team will not get you accepted to college. NOT being captain of the varsity soccer team will not get you rejected from college.
It’s a disappointment. But it’s likely to have zero effect on your college applications.
My daughter was one of the captains of her team in high school. It was awful. Too much drama, too much time spent talking to the other captains about the drama. No upside at all.
On to college and the first year the coach picked the captain (new team, she picked the grad student and that was a good choice because of the maturity). Second year only those who passed all the fitness tests the first time were eligible, and my daughter missed one. I was relieved. There were tears from one of the 3 eligible as she wasn’t chosen. For the third year, the team voted but only a few were eligible as there was a gpa requirement. Well, this time daughter was elected and of course I’m not happy because I spent a lot of time talking DOWN the position because of the HS experience. It’s already causing drama. The one who wasn’t picked the second year wasn’t picked again. More tears. There are always tears.
And there is no upside! No extra scholarship money, no crown, no love. It’s a lot of picking up cones and drying tears. Oh, and extra meetings with the coach so she can tell them to pick up cones and dry tears.
Lots of good advice for you on this thread, OP. As you have already learned from playing soccer, there is sometimes unfairness on the field. There are missed calls and bad calls. Once you have more distance on this you will see that the experience is akin to a bad call. You were involved in a rough play and you went down hard. Your opponent probably should have been carded and wasn’t. You get up, shake it off, brush the dirt from your leg, and run down the field with renewed determination. That’s how you play the game of soccer, and that’s how you play the game of life.
Good luck and, as someone advised above, be an All-Star.
Way back in the 80’s, a high school teacher I respected “betrayed” and humiliated me, or so I felt at the time. I feel your pain. I took it far too personally and carried the baggage around throughout high school. I was sure everyone thought about it as much as I did, etc… The second high school finished, I realized how silly I had been. You aren’t being silly right now, of course. It hurts and it isn’t fair. But don’t do what I did and dwell on it. It is a minor blip in your life, trust me.
Because of the wonders of social media, I have reconnected with some high school friends. When I jokingly said to a couple of them, “hey remember when Mr. ____ humiliated me? I was so embarassed.”, not a single one of them had any recollection of it. Like I said, this bites right now, but it will not affect the course of your life one iota. Best of luck to you!
Sorry about it. You will get past this. You may always remember (I haven’t forgotten an unfairness in Girl Scouts in 7th grade- but what I remember is some pride, over all the decades, in how I handled it.)
Look forward. You can still enjoy and it will not affect college chances. Now on the annoying 'perpetually positive" side, see if there’s an additional interest you can now pick up, since you’ll have a wee bit of extra time without this responsibility. Something bold and different. Some good use of your time outside hs, maybe something that helps others in ways you never thought of.
“just because you are not named Captain doesn’t mean you can’t be a leader.”
THIS.
You can be a leader without the captain title. Encourage your teammates regardless of ability, teach the younger players some of the skills you have, be a friend on and off the team, model good sportsmanship for team members, don’t get sucked into the drama, ask the coach to help you hone your talents, and stay on the team for the entire season. Improve your own skills, be an official for a rec league if you have one, be that person you would be if you had the captain label. It’s only a title; it doesn’t define YOU.
You may remember not being named captain, but you’ll also remember how you dealt with it. Be the person you’ll be proud of in 5, 10 , or 30 years and you’ll be able to look back at this as an opportunity for growth instead of a failure.
I can imagine how hard this is for you. I am fortunate enough to have been chosen as a varsity soccer captain, but I have been on teams where the captains were not leaders and other players really stepped it up. Show your class, and lead in the many ways that you can. The players around you will know who is impacting them. It’s a bummer that you can’t write “Captain” on your applications, but good things follow mature people who choose to lead even in tough circumstances
