Today's athletes, tomorrow's leaders
300 athletes from Catholic schools gather for clinic to learn how to lead
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 23, 2007
 Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic
"When you're on a sports team, you have other people you're responsible for. You look out for them and they look out for you. So, in being a leader, you're always looking out for the guy next to you. Even if you are the best player on the team, it's not about you it's about what's best for the team. It really doesn't matter what individual stats you have if your team's not winning." ~ Jason Semmes (right), football and lacrosse player, St. Mary's Prep in Orchard Lake | Detroit Jack Roberts, captain of his high school basketball team, hopped into a car with a teammate after practice. His friend reached for the cigarette lighter in the dashboard. Jack grabbed it from him.
"You smoke in my presence," said Jack firmly, "and you're kicked off the team."
This was several years ago. Last week, Roberts now the executive director of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, his hair graying told his story to 300 student athletes from Catholic high schools in southeastern Michigan.
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"A good leader to me is someone who doesn't follow the crowd and stands up for people who may be tormented sometimes. It's someone who follows their own path." ~ Tommy Dulapa, basketball and baseball player, Notre Dame Prep in Harper Woods
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"A leader is someone who can help you without really hurting your feelings or anything. And they can always be there for you when you need help, whether it's with the sport that you're doing or with any activity that you're doing or just a personal problem, or anything like that. They're just always there for you." ~ Melissa Raffoul, golf, tennis and volleyball player, Regina High School in Harper Woods |
"I was a senior," he continued. "It was time to stand like a rock.
If you're given an opportunity to do something right, don't give it up."
Leadership and moral uprightness in sports were prominent themes in the 2007 Captain's Clinic, a daylong seminar sponsored by the Catholic High School League and conducted by the Michigan High School Athletic Association Feb. 13 at Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
Students many of them hand-picked by their coaches, athletic directors and school administrators to be at the clinic attended workshops on team motivation, conflict resolution, peer modeling and teambuilding.
The clinic has been in existence only a couple of years, and the MHSAA had to pick just three leagues in the state of Michigan for which to conduct it. Vic Michaels, director of the Catholic High School League, pushed hard to get the learning opportunity for Catholic high school athletes in Detroit.
It's one of many ways, he said, sports players can learn character-building qualities.
"The characteristics of a good athlete are probably the same as a good leader," said Michaels. "The things they learn on the field and practice day to day, being around their coaches and around people who naturally want to lead that helps them tremendously."
For many of the athletes at the seminar, the clinic gave a fresh perspective on how to go about their duties, either as team captain or as an on-the-field leader.
"It'll probably change my approach a bit," said Michael Joiner-Hill, who next year will be team captain for University of Detroit High School's football squad. "Motivating teammates isn't about yelling at them all the time. Sometimes it's encouraging them. Some people respond better to encouragement."
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"Sports teams always are faced with problems anddifficulties, and I guess those who confront the difficulties and the challenges and try to solve them, obviously, end up being the better leaders. And if there are problems with kids picking on underclassmen, or if there are kids doing things outside of school or sports that are not appropriate, it's the leaders who stand out and decide that they are not going to partake in certain activities, and help thoseunderclassmen." ~ Kevin Dzierzawski (far left), soccer player and track member,Brother Rice High School in Birmingham
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"You learn a lot of lessons in sports that you can apply to other areas of your life. You learn to get along with people sometimes, even if you don't want to. If they're frustrating, you're on the same team and you have to work it out. You also learn not to get mad at the refs, because they're the authority and you have to be cool about it." ~ Gina Valgoi, track, cross country and hockey player, Regina High School in Harper Woods
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Student athlete Brian French from St. Mary's Prep in Orchard Lake, flanked by Catholic High School League director Vic Michaels (right), reads the opening prayer to the Captain's Clinic Feb. 13. |
Melissa Raffoul, who plays volleyball, tennis and golf at Regina High School in Harper Woods, said being in an atmosphere with people from different schools many on-court rivals helped her to open up.
"It really helped my communication skills," Raffoul said, "because I get really nervous to go with a bunch of people from different schools and just try to talk to them. It's kind of weird to talk to your rival schools. It was fun."
And though they heard stories about what good leaders do the student athletes had their own stories to tell, often about their own teammates, about what leadership is.
For example, Kevin Dzierzawski, a soccer player at Brother Rice High School in Birmingham, recalls being hassled when he tried out for the team as a freshman.
"One of the captains actually took me out to lunch and told me not to let the upperclassmen get under my skin and just to keep trying to impress them and gain their respect and just to keep doing what I do best," Dzierzawski said.
Others have already had to lead on their own. Our Lady of Mount Carmel baseball player Jacob Blaszczyk is one of them. In a huge game against Cabrini High School in Allan Park last year, Mount Carmel needed a win to stay in contention for the Catholic League playoffs.
"A good leader is the person who works the hardest and cares the most about his teammates," Blaszczyk said.
In that game, his hard work got him a no-hitter. And his teammates were most appreciative.
"That was a pretty big deal," he said.
Of course, with every story of stunning success in sports, there's a story of stinging failure. And the ebbs and flows that athletes experience in school help prepare them for life.
 Jack Roberts, executive director of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, addresses student athletes for the clinic's opening address. |
 Students from De La Salle High School in Warren bow their heads during opening prayer of the Captain's Clinic on sports leadership. |
Student athletes listen intently to a keynote speaker at the Feb. 13 Captain's Clinic. |
Betty Wroubel, athletic director at Notre Dame High School, saw the Captain's Clinic as another way to take on-field or on-court lessons and extend them into lessons about character.
"The very nature of sports puts you into those problem-solving and leadership ability situations," Wroubel said.
She's grateful, she added, that the Catholic High School League provides them with various ways of building better leaders through sports.
"What sport brings is just phenomenal," she said.
And if you listen to athletes such as Jason Semmes, a football and lacrosse player at Orchard Lake St. Mary, you'll hear nothing but agreement.
"Sports gives you foundation for life," Semmes said. "It teaches you all the qualities you need to be a successful person, like dedication, time management everything. Like they were saying (at the Captain's Clinic), it could teach you everything from how to be a good football player, to how to be a good dad in the future.
Sports has done for me what nothing else could do."
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