Being a captain for a team, especially at the collegiate level, comes with a lot of responsibilities and obstacles. Coaches and players come together after every season and decide who will be the future captains of each team, then they decide how they will run the team from a play perspective for the upcoming year. This year I was elected captain of Wesleyan’s 2024 Football team with three of my teammates. Us four came together and decided that this was the year that we would do something special for Wesleyan Football and make history. 

This journey began back at the end of our 2023 season. We played Trinity College (our rivals), and lost 58-6 on our senior day and last game of the year. Having one of the worst and most embarrassing performances in sports I ever had was a huge setback for me, but I knew that it would be a huge learning curve depending on what I took away from it. Looking around at all of our team after that game, we knew that this would never happen again and that this set a fire under us. 

We decided that the mission of the off season will be to work harder than anyone else while finding a life balance. Going to an academically rigorous school and playing sports is tough, so we knew that we had to find a way to get everyone on board while continuing that fire. We found a middle ground using cultural awareness and what we needed to enhance to make our team that much better. We hopped on insightful calls with past captains, elected positional group leaders to help us lead and make sure they felt like they had a say as well, held team players only meetings opening it up to the entire team, talked to the coaches on what we needed from them, focused on bonding on and off the field, and more. 

After many morning workouts and a busy spring, we had one of the best off seasons we could ask for. This was the most motivated we had seen a team here at Wesleyan since being here, so we had a strong feeling about the upcoming year. We battled through critical injuries, many close games, and a lot more adversity but found ways to come on top. 2024’s Wesleyan Football team became the first ever team in school history to win the NESCAC outright. Everything I took away from the journey will forever be ingrained in me.

The Behind The Scenes Process:

The Mental Process:

The Success: