Once or twice a month, sophomores, juniors, and seniors from various sports around the school, who are seen as leaders on their team, meet to discuss leadership roles and how to become a better leader. It was a big honor to be nominated and accepted into this program and is a selective program that helps young athletes grow as leaders.
Each meeting a new figure around the school comes to talk to the young leaders and give them valuable lessons. So far four leadership figures around the school have come and discussed leadership. Mr. Derrera, the head school wrestling coach and a current teacher in the math department. Mrs. Lawhead, a former collegiate athlete, former head JV volleyball coach, and current teacher at Holy Family. Mr. Remington, teacher here at Holy Family and cross country and track coach And Mr. Martinez, former softball coach and currently part of the athletic department. Each speaker has had a new topic they focus on, while including interactive activities and each topic relating to the previous one.
Some activities we participate in include analyzing videos of bigger scale leaders, interviewing leaders in our own lives, analyzing the specific need of our own team, and discussing overall traits while including self reflection of ourselves as leaders. ADM McRaven’s 2014 Commencement speech for University of Texas, Sabrina Ionescu’s interview, and clips of the TV show Ted Lasso are all videos we have watched to see real-world examples of leaders. The leader we interview in our own lives can include other people in the Athletic Leadership Program who are teammates, older siblings who are leaders, parents who might be seen as leadership models, or collegiate athletes we know.
Some of the self reflection questions include writing on a scale from 1-4 how much we agree with certain statements about leadership with 1 being do not agree and four being highly agree. Some examples of these statements include but are not limited to:
1. When I think of leadership, I think of a person with special personality traits
2. Some people are born to be leaders
3. A person needs to have certain traits to be an effective leader
4. People become great leaders because of their traits
1. Leadership requires knowledge and know-how
2. The key to successful leadership is having the right skills
3. Effective leaders are competent in their roles
4. Effective leaders have competence and knowledge
At the end of the year when the program finishes, each member will be able to apply what they learned to their teams, take on their leadership traits to college, in the classroom, at home, and in every part of their live in the future.
