What do captains want from me?

Rose City Rollers has four home teams. Each is a different flavor. In my mind — and I’m bias — The Breakneck Betties (red) are the hard hitters, The High Rollers (green/gold) are beautiful women and speed-skater-like, The Guns and Rollers (black/pink) are creative and The Heartless Heathers (blue) are the strategists.

Our next home team draft is coming up, so I asked the new captains of each of those four teams what they look for when they decide which fresh meat to pull up to a team. I coach fresh meat and have read this list to them a couple of times now. It gave me a great reminder of the sort of skater we’re all striving to be. Here is what they said:

Attitude:
-Cooperative
-Drama free
-Hungry to learn
-Brings intensity
-Accept feedback and apply it
-Getting out of the comfort zone
-Isn’t afraid to try jamming
-Drive to constantly improve, try anything
-Tenacity
-Fun to skate with
-No suck ups
-I’m not interested in a superstar; I want a team player who works hard and motivates me to work harder
-Coachable (If you have leadership, the ability to execute and urgency, you can come across as overconfident and rude if you aren’t coachable)
-Be a team player and work well with others

Physical skill:
-Doesn’t have to have the perfect plow stop/hit/juking but if they show these things at practice that makes them stand out and they will improve over time
-Overall power (it’s not enough to be fast or have fancy feet, but you gotta back it up with some power)
-Solid hitters (can take a hit too) who hit in good form
-Fall (that means you’re trying new things)
-Communication is good, but the next step is taking that action. Don’t just tell other people what to do
-Someone who is bout-ready
-Mastering the basics (stops, pick-up speed, good form, speed, endurance, solid well-timed hits, etc) is important
-Having a voice on the track
-Execution – being able to do the things you know you’re supposed to (applying smarts)

Smart skill:
-Jammer awareness (they don’t have to be great at communicating but ALWAYS talk about where the opposing jammer is)
-Concept of strategy — a lot of FM struggle with this, it’s refreshing when a FM skaters has these basic concepts
-Communication on the track
-Not going rogue
-Knowing what to do and being confident enough in their skills and knowledge to share with their team what is happening and what should be happening
-Awareness
-Smarts in the pack
-Understanding of the rules
-Can play (my specific team’s) game
-Awareness
-Understanding the game and applying strategy are imperative

Other:
-Safe intensity, so many of FM appear nervous to me and then I do not see them bringing intensity as I know they can
-Urgency – do everything on the track with urgency, aggression, intensity, as if it were in a bout. Practice the way you play.
-Utility players
-Being team-focused
-Will contribute to a team off the track
-Ask questions and sweat a lot
-Team players — I need a teammate, not a hero
-Leadership

*Any “redundancies” are real. It means more than one captain said this.

Credit to the smart and pretty captains: Indigo Hurls, Ripley, Scarlene, Yoga Nabi Sari, Bella Constrictor and Feliz Brutality who are/do all of these things.