Advise needed for a new captain

8

8up

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Background first. I joined an APA league in the middle of last session. The team was kind of thrown together and players changed often. This session my wife decided to play as well. I told my captain I was going to start another team as his roster was full.

He says no just put her on this team and remove him because he has to start working nights in 3 weeks any way. Now most times we don't have more than 5 players show up anyway. He could have removed 1 guy who has been deployed or or another that will never play. But he says nope he will take his self off "because he has to start working nights in 3 weeks"

Now 20 minutes into the night I walk over to see another team member to see if he wants 8 or 9 or both. He is standing with my now ex-captain. Ex-captain says I started a new team and he plays on it now. Now the team has really lost 3 players because a 3rd guy owns another room and will not play hardly ever. Most likely never as he and the ex-captain were friends.

My new team consist of my myself, wife and another couple and another lady. This lady who will often show up and say she will have to pay next week because she only has her quarters and beer money. She is there most nights early to get a few beers in. I don't care for that part but what bothers me more is she can not shoot, she can not take instruction even when she does ask for it.

She never shoots a ball other than on league night when beer is on special. Then she whines about shooting so bad. I tried to be nice but still make a point by telling her that if she doesn't practice she will not get better. She says but I don't have the extra money to practice. I looked at her and told her she could drink a couple less beers and play 6 or 8 games each night before league. She has been in the league for a few years I guess but I will be looking for new players and play her less in hopes she quits my team. I feel guilty somewhat about this.

On the other hand I feel I owe it to the team. The rest of us practice and limit any alcohol so as it doesn't effect our game. While we want to have fun we want to win as much as possible. We do not like the idea of losing because a player drinks to much and doesn't try to improve.

What would you do in this case?

I would also love it if some of you out there could pm me about how I should try to match up players for the night.

We may never win but we won't sandbag either.

Thanks,
Ron
 
When everybody elses handicap goes up do to diligence and self control, this drunken teammate will be worth her weight in gold. Play her no more than you have to and when you do, play her early. These teams are built to have a few "bad" players. Every honest team has at least one,sometimes two, depending on how strong the rest of the team plays.

As far as matching up, we try to match up as even whenever possible. Things like fatigue and drinking do come into play some to...try to shoot a sober shot last when possible. A drunk anchor is a sure fire "L" in most cases. Especially if that guy is me lol.

Also, if a player has been building houses in the hot sun for twelve hours, don't save this guy till late either. Play him when you notice hes practicing well for his speed and encourage him to practice early and often. As the hours wear on he will surely wear down....and it will be evident in his focus and play more often then not.

On occasion, you will run into a player at the top of the handicap scale who you "know" nobody on you team can beat no matter the spot. This is where you want to get your beer buddy matched up if possible. She can take the loss she was gonna collect anyway and a better player is saved for a potential win.
 
If they can't pay they don't play. At the end of the night the captian is responsible for the league money for all the players. You sign the score sheet and you are responsible. They will come looking for you to pay them their money. Home team collects the dues from the visiting team and is responsible for sending in the money and the score sheets to the league operator. I will not accept anything but the full amount from the visiting team. I've never had a problem with the money.

It sounds like your ex captain dumped a bad team on you so he could join another team. If you want to be a captain cut the players you don't want now and find new players to replace them.

It's league play so try to remember it's supposed to be a fun night out. My standard rule of thumb is nobody sits 2 weeks in a row. If you don't show up I need a phone call prior to start time so I can plan ahead.

Dump the non paying drunk and find yourself a beginner who can pay and will show up with a desire to play and get better. Handicap limits are a ***** sometimes but that's no reason to keep a dog that won't try to hunt.

Keep track of who your players play and how they are playing. If they are winning most of the time and you are worried they are going to get moved up, play them against someone who has beaten them before or who you think can beat them. This will help to keep handicap under control without sandbagging or otherwise gaming the system.

:cool:
 
I agree with parts of both previous posts. (Disclaimer. I haven't served as a captain yet, though I believe I'm about to become co-captain this coming session, so I not only feel ya, I'm interested in the responses here.)

The biggest thing from your situation is how to handle the drunk. Nothing against drunks, I could become one if I let myself, I'm sure. On the one hand, having the low handicap around could prove useful. However, her not paying her way is a major issue. Unless you are into being philanthropic, it will become a major drag all session long.

My opinion, you can go one of two ways with her. Straight up "fire" her, and be done with the problem. That is a little on the harsh side, and it would be difficult for me to do, at least starting out as the new captain. Or secondly, simply don't play her on weeks she isn't going to be able to pay her way. That may cause her to quit on her own, or it might straighten her out, at least regarding that part of her team participation. If you choose that route, be clear about it with her right from the very beginning, that this is how it's gonna be done, for her and for everyone. No one "floats" the weekly fees. (If they work something out with someone else, that's their deal, but you ain't gonna do it.)

It might be a good idea to have a small meeting with everyone before you get started and lay out your basic ground rules, just so there is no confusion. If you want things a certain way, it's far better to have stated that at the beginning of a session then part way through. My previous team captain wanted to start requiring every player to use their time-outs every game, regardless of whether the player felt it was needed, even on the last ball with no cause for discussion. He didn't want anyone to have a time-out unused. Trying to incorporate that mid-stream didn't fly very well. There were other issues, as well, but that's the example that stuck in my mind. Getting it all "out there" at the beginning of the session will leave no room for misunderstanding.

I wish you luck, and as I said earlier, I'm curious about what other advice you get on this thread, and how it may apply to our team.
 
It sounds like you're short handed anyway, actively and openly look for new players who will be reliable. Get the word out that you're looking. Once you fill out your shortage of players, keep looking on the down low and if you get another player, drop one of the ones that are less reliable.

I usually email / call / text all of my team the day before a match to ask if they can be there. I ususally find out then if someone is short on cash or has some kind of conflict. The day-of the match, I verify with the five players that agreed to be there if they indeed will be on time. This is usually when I find out if someone needs to play early or late... or if they can be flexible.

I have a couple of players that do drink a lot during league night. But I take that into account and play them early enough that they can still play a little.

I know who is a drinker and who just doesn't play well at all.... and with the 23-rule, you have to deal with it. I just try to hope that my players on consistant. If they are relitively consistant, then I can play stratagy to try to get the win.

The only thing that sometimes sucks is that you often have to play certain people early every week. It's not fair to the sober ones that end up having to play late most of the time. I try to find players that are willing to be flexible and don't mind playing late.
 
Quick, pack your bags and get the hell out of Tennessee as fast as you can. Change your name, live the remainder of your life "under the radar". There's persons on this site that's gonna hound the livin' daylights out of you for takin' on this mess. Hell, several hundred of 'em are gonna "rip you a new one" just because it's an APA league.

Don't say I didn't warn ya :wink::D:D:D!!!


On a more serious note, I'd get rid of the non-paying drunk. She's gonna be more trouble than she's worth. She's gonna cause you enough anguish, it's gonna mess up your game on some nights. Get with your League Operator and see if he/she can find you a player or two (preferably low skill-level players). Try not to take this league/captain thing too serious this first session. Use this session to get used to all the nuances of league play and how to match up players for optimum performance (some players have a "comfort zone" in what their opponents skill level is. Some players like/dislike be interupted by a time-out). These types of things and others you are gonna hafta ease yourself into. Relax, have fun, learn!!!

Maniac
 
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Maniac said:
Hell, several hundred of 'em are gonna "rip you a new one" just because it's an APA league.

Don't say I didn't warn ya :wink::D:D:D!!!

Maniac
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Unfortunately, Maniac is right. The reality is though, that a lot of people here play APA, but you will hear from the others.



BTW, I just started as captain of a BCA team on another night (in addition to my APA teams).... it's soooo much easier! Less B.S. to deal with!!!! :thumbup:
 
Funny, just the other night I said to myself "we haven't had an APA bashing thread in a while..." :o

Probably the CTE stuff has kept folks busy enough. ;)

On our team we don't have to worry too much about the late-in-the-night player getting tired of having to be "that guy". I'm quite used to it by now... and I'm a bit of a night owl in any event. I can certainly see how that issue could be a problem for many teams, and it certainly is something to keep in mind as you play out the session.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. The drunk's money is not covered by me if she doesn't have it. I talked with the LO last week to make sure he was going to cover it. I told him I would not. He told me she is always good for it, so let her play and he would cover it.

Tonight we play a tough team and I will try to play her early and put her up against one of their better players.

I still have plenty to learn myself. I hope to keep records somewhat of wins and losses as well as know where we are in the standings. The last captain never knew what place we were in. Heck he had us show up the last week of last session and when we got there he told us we were not even to play that it was playoffs.

I know APA is not perfect. I know its full of sandbaggers. I know its highly unlikely we will ever even make it to regionals but I would like my players to win more than they lose and to have fun.
 
As a former APA captain here is my advice on running a team. DO NOT PLAY with people who make your night no fun. It is simply not worth it. I also played to play with my wife and some friends. Keep people on your team you can have a good time with, or you won't be doin it long.
 
Life's too short to let your enjoyment be dictated by a drunken reprobate. Lose her & take a forfeit if you have to - you pretty much have one anyway.
I've said it before... I may wind up a loser, but I'm gonna be a respected loser.
 
8up said:
I still have plenty to learn myself. I hope to keep records somewhat of wins and losses as well as know where we are in the standings. The last captain never knew what place we were in. Heck he had us show up the last week of last session and when we got there he told us we were not even to play that it was playoffs.
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Your scoresheet should have your teams record right on it, updated each week. I find it odd that your LO doesn't have a website with standings and schedules and such. Our LO does indeed have one, and it is quite helpfull. We can even print our weekly scoresheets if needed. (Like a couple of weeks ago when "someone" spilled their beer on the clipboard while keeping score... Didn't that tick me off to waste beer like that! The place we were playing at is a block from my house, I spun home, printed a new sheet, and was back in 10 minutes.)

Our LO has a lot of info on his website, like Top Gun standings, schedules, and other stuff. No, it's not perfect, and yes, there are things on their site which annoy me, being as it's his "business" one would think the site would be better, but as it is the site is quite functional. Check with your LO and see if they have one, and if not, let me know and I'll give you the URL of ours. You can pretty much just google "APA" and you'll find dozens of examples in any event.
 
Your situation reminds me of one I found myself in a couple of years ago. i joined a Tuesday night APA team on a lark, mainly because a bar manager I liked asked me to join. I wasn't serious about it, it was just something I did Tuesday nights. My second season in, the bar closed. The good players left, but those of us from the neighborhood decided to keep the team together, playing from another bar, in case the original bar reopened. It was decided that I would be captain, mainly because no one else wanted to deal with the money or the paperwork.

We were the embarrassment of the division We didn't know what we were doing, people would just go out and get messed up, or even worse, they wouldn't show up at all and I'd get stuck paying all our dues. I'd hit people up for dues at the end of the night, after watching them drink all night, and they'd claim they didn't have the money. It was a disaster.

The first thing I did was accept an invitation to join a Monday night team that I knew was a good team, so I could see how a team was run. I lacked the league experience and the table experience to figure this out on my own. I gained knowledge not only how to run a team, but I was able to get tactical insights from long-time league members about strategy, etc.

The next thing I did was recruit. Think of yourself like John Calipari or Nick Saban. Gameday decisions matter, but what you do in the offseason is often more important. I recruited a couple of players with league experience and higher skill levels (teams get top heavy and are always shedding quality players). Within 2 seasons, we'd gone from division basement to champions. There's no reason to carry dead wood around when there are good players who want to play.

As for your problem player, I'd probably wait until the end of the season to get rid of her to minimize the chances of a team forfeit. Try to keep enough players on your team of varying skill levels that you can get rid of problem players as soon as you can. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches this way.

Good luck.
 
Hey, Ron, I was thinking of this a bit more last night and I have a couple of more suggestions.

One of the things my Monday captain did is collect all the season's dues in advance (our league allows and encourages pre-payment of dues). This has a couple of advantages. It keeps people committed to the team since they have an investment in it. It saves you the hassle of collecting dues every week. And it allows you to gauge commitment from your team members at the beginning of the season. You may need to be a little flexible at the beginning to assist people with legitimate cash flow issues, but really, we're not talking about a whole lot of money here. This didn't work on my Tuesday team because it caused discord between the players who played more/less (this was due to my own shortcomings/inexperience as a captain -- I should have managed this better, but I didn't realize it until it was too late).

In the short term, you could try collecting dues before a player steps on the table. If they don't have the dues, they don't play. If your team has to take a forfeit, IT IS ON THAT PLAYER FOR FAILING TO PAY DUES. That will make clear that the person who doesn't pay dues is not just letting YOU down, but letting the entire TEAM down.

This may sound like tough love, but being a captain is a lot of work, and there is no reason you should have to subsidize ANY player, least of all one who doesn't take instruction, isn't shooting well, etc. Stand your ground.
 
My LO has said he will cover it if she does not have it. So thats not on me. That said she was a no show last night. We played extra sets instead of forfeiting any games and went lost 4-1 in 8 ball and won 9 ball something like 69-31
 
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