With the end of the semester just a few weeks away, spring athletic teams are wrapping up their respective seasons and wistfully eyeing the summer that is just around the corner. For track, the year-long training cycle is about to end.
For most of us, summer consists of a little break, followed by prepping and getting ready for the next season to come. For the seniors, however, their careers are over and they head off to tackle the real world. In losing them, we also lose our team captains — and although team leadership remains consistent across years, the team dynamic is still affected by the loss of a captain.
The captains do a great job of transitioning the leadership role to third-year athletes — preparing them to take the reins when the time comes. When the end of the year rolls around, the new captains are set in their roles and the rest of us have accepted the seniors’ departure. But just because we don’t see a net loss of leadership doesn’t mean this process doesn’t affect morale on the team.
The most difficult part of this process is not having a teammate there with you next year, after you’ve spent such a long time with them developing a strong relationship. For some of us, it could have been one of our closest training partners or even our best friend. On athletic teams, each person plays a role of some sort, which helps all of us to combine and function as a team. Every team always has the jokester, the superstar and the teammate who keeps us all in line.
This past fall we went into the season without the 2011-12 team’s seniors, and it just didn’t feel right. We had melded into a family — with everyone playing their unique roles — and at the beginning of the year, a large piece of that family is missing.
Adapting to the loss, we quickly turn to welcoming in the first-years who will soon fill the void. They always do — but there’s inevitably a down time at the beginning of the year when we know someone who contributed to the team isn’t there anymore.
Importantly though, team chemistry grows stronger quickly in the year, and the family connection we once felt soon returns. So cheers to this year’s graduating athletes — your spots on the roster may be filled come next fall, but you’ll never be replaced.
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