Venting at the Position

A friend of mine got bitched out the other day from a teammate.  The players' feelings were hurt and by the time she let her hurt known, there was raising voices and pointing fingers and expressing pain.

My friend is the Captain of the team.

She was upset about the entire thing (who wouldn't be) and while expressing empathy, I also tried to tell her it comes with the territory.  As Captain, we are in a position to get yelled at and when feelings get hurt, or players are upset, they most of the time take it out on the Captain, the person who is "in charge."

Case in point is being a Tournament Director.  I get yelled out and chewed on a lot.  Players show their frustrations to me and cuss at me (yes) and get mad at their situation while raising their voices at me.  Or sometimes players send me day-long texts about why they are upset with the handicap system or what transpired that day they got upset.

It just happens to be the position we are in.  All Tournament Directors have an unwritten line in their job description that reads, "will be bitched at."  LOL

I get it.  I do.  Players lose, they vent.  Players get hurt, they vent.

Players are competing, it gets emotional, money on the line, rankings, etc.  I understand so completely about losing and venting.

While I admit it's tough to be on the receiving end and handle sometimes, I would rather players vent to me than to all their friends and bad-mouth the tour (or my friends' team as another example).

It's just the position.  And it's part of the "job."  It's not the time to take anything personal, retaliate, argue back, etc.  Sure, it bothers us.  As turmoil or conflict normally does.  But not taking the venting or hurt towards us personal is the true leader in ourselves.

Captain Woes

I pride myself on being a good captain.  I mostly want to provide a positive atmosphere for my teammates, and I try to make the best decisions possible.

However, I have written that my soft heart has been in the way of making the BEST decisions (usually when to pull someone).

But although I normally write about all good things, let's be real - every day is not a good pool day.  And I have to honest and share those times as well, as much as it pains me to state this.  But this is my journey with pool, and this is part of my journey

After our HUGE win in July when our team WON the BCAPL Women's Open Event, we were all ecstatic and very pleased with having the privileged to say, "We are National Champs!"

However, after the tournament, weeks after, I somehow mentioned one night to one of the teammates that we all played badly.

I meant what I said, but I didn't realize how I worded that, nor the ramifications of what I said.

Why would I say that you ask?  I don't even remember the context, but I heard many months later from a friend that what I said hurt that teammate.

And she's right.

And I was wrong.

We won a National title!!!  I should never have said that.  And I obviously didn't get to explain what I meant, which hurts them even more I'm sure because they don't understand what I meant (and I was wrong for stating it that way).

I pride myself of providing a positive atmosphere for my teammates, whether captain or not.  And I have actually almost quit teams because of the negativity.

So, my words hurt my teammate, and.... it hurt me, also.  :(

I'm disappointed in myself for saying that - I didn't think before I spoke.  And that's not like me.

I meant that we didn't play like we can play; that we all struggled a little.  But we still played great to win and that's what was important!  Further, if we played bad and still won, it shows just how good we really are!

I apologize for my poor choice of words several months ago.  I should never have said that, and instead focused on the fact we won a freaking National title!

Captain Bailey

Being captain is not fun.

Not fun at all.

I truly am okay with being captain and making decisions.  But I can also admit that I think my heart is too big for the role.

In some tourneys, I have played teammates so they can get experience and feel part of the team in big events.  I have sat out some of the better players in those cases. Why?  Because I know those players will not get hurt and they will understand why I did that; while at the same time giving other players experiences they may not have had before.  I am all for learning experiences and making memories.

When it comes to "stacked" teams, I play all the good players all the time. I don't mess around; I play the correct players to win.

However, I have found out two important things while doing this in the past year:

1. I should always play to win and play the top players MORE, even if experience is the goal for others.
2. It's tough on my heart to sit out any player; even the good ones who might be struggling or the good ones who should play.

Every decision I made - who to sit out or leave in, is tough on me.

I have had several teammates recommend I play certain people or take others out and I was SO thankful they spoke up!  But at the same time, it also pained me to do it.  I eventually I rearranged some players because it was best for the team to win, but it doesn't mean my heart didn't feel some pain to sit them out or even mention I MIGHT have to sit them out.

While I CAN be a good captain and I think I'm good at it for the players, I don't always make the strong decisions right away because my heart gets in the way. 

I do eventually overcome my heart tug-of-war and do what's best, especially when I get feedback from other teammates.

But, sometimes I waffle and don't make the right decisions right away.  I'm a work in progress, though!

One of my friends has no problem sitting anyone out and doing what's best for the team to win at all times.  My little heart stops me from being at that level right now.

I am still proud to say I have captained TWO first place National teams and one first place State Team.  I am doing somewhat okay.  :) 

But, being captain means listening to others; and that I do very well. 

And, I also have great teammates!

Captain Duties

I mentioned in my last entry that we won our first match in women's team of the BCAPL Texas State tourney 9-0.  The by-laws of our team was whoever had the worst record would sit out the next round.  I sat out the first round.

And we had no one to sit out the next round!  It was a great, funny moment for the team.  :)

So, by the rules, I sat out the second round, too.

My teammates weren't very happy with me, though. 

They kept saying I needed to play; I SHOULD play.

I was like, "Whatever.  You all are doing great!"

We play a pretty tough team the next round and I still had no worries.  I put teammate Maria in the Number 1 spot, so if it went hill-hill, she would be play that for us.  She seemed apprehensive, but also said she shoots well under pressure.

I noticed our opponents were keeping up with us and it was tied 4-4.  Someone (I don't remember who now) told me to put myself in.  With 4 losses, everyone had lost one and so I still didn't know who to freakin' sit out, lol!

I looked at the match-ups and saw who I would fair best against, and who my teammates would fair best against, and I finally put myself in the line up and played two rounds.

We won 9-8! 

Maria came through on the hill and beat their Advanced Player twice!  The final win being our favorite moment of the match.  :)

As the tournament progressed, I have to say I felt super bad having to take anyone out of the line-up.  My teammates told me I needed to stay in, but I would have pulled myself out if I had the most losses.  They said I shouldn't remove myself, but everyone was so equal in my mind, the by-law was fair game to anyone.

As I said before, I made myself the captain so no one else felt the pressure to be in that position.   It can be a tough situation at times.  And, it was more than I expected. 

I kept feeling worse and worse as the matches went on as I had to decide who to sit out.  If everyone was even on their losses, I had to choose, and I didn't like that feeling.

And if I saw someone struggling, I had to make a decision for the team.  I had to put my little heart to the side and put my leadership captain hat on and make tough, but the correct decisions.

I kept reiterating to everyone, "You are playing good, I'm not taking you out because of that."  They would always respond with "I know, thank you, you have to do what's best for the team; I understand completely."

On Sunday, we were still in the winner's side.  However, our only match was the Finals on Sunday night at 6pm.  Two teammates kept making comments they were nervous, one teammate hurt her back overnight, and the other teammate was fighting a cold.  We lost the first set 4-9 and I have to admit it was a shock.

I had to make decisions based on the players and how they felt and what they were going through.  At this point, the by-laws went out the window because we all weren't playing equal anymore:  being sick and nervous affects play.

I wasn't nervous the first set, BUT I wasn't playing my best for some reason.  I told the team I would put Maria in the hill-hill spot the second set, because I wasn't feeling it.  Maria said she was fine with that decision.

I was filling out the sheet and Lisa comes up to me and says, "You should be the hill person.  Put yourself down in that spot."

I looked at her kinda funny, as I was just looking at the line-up and had only considered that myself because of the line up I wanted to use that I felt was best for us to cause damage.  "Okay, " I replied as I scratched out Maria's name in spot 1 and put her in spot 4.

We went up 4-0 right away!!  But our opponents countered with 4 straight wins to tie it 4-4 in a race to 9.

I lost my second match due to an unfortunate scratch in the stupid side.  I was upset at myself and frustrated and then became nervous, too. 

I recovered and won my last two matches and waited to see if we would need a final hill-hill match or not.  Both teams were playing great and it was neck and neck.  I was so proud of my teammates!

I saw it was close 7-7 and I went and took a shot of Jäger because I got nervous, lol.

Our opponents, West Texas Bad Girls from Odessa, got on the hill first.  Yikes!  Score 7-8.  Race to 9,

Maria found herself in a long match and I had to start mine (we are suppose to do "continuous play" even if it's not hill-hill yet).

Maria won her match while I'm in the middle of my match, and now the score is 8-8!

And then I win my match to seal the title for the ladies:  State Champs! 

It was a very long emotional match, but we did it together with style!  

I hope my teammates appreciated my decisions throughout the weekend.  I did ask for input a lot and discussed things with them, but overall, I made final decisions so the team could just focus on playing pool and not worry about things.  I'm willing and ready to provide further leadership at BCAPL Nationals, even though I know at times it will be tough to make decisions. I'm ready for the job, Ladies!

On Cloud Nine Still!

"Fab Five"

BCAPL Texas State Women's Team Champs!