As the second semester continues, many spring sport seasons are both starting up and coming to a close. Captains of the various teams here at Lewis & Clark have hefty responsibilities when it comes to leading their teammates.
Kate Meinhard ’26, captain of both women’s soccer and the lacrosse team, enjoys her position, despite its demanding time commitment.
“Soccer is a little bit more — we’re in charge of team bonding, kind of communicating a lot of things to all of our teammates, a lot of the coaches in soccer rely on us for helping — kind of organizing everything,” Meinhard said. “This year we’ve been reaching out to the recruits we have coming in next year.”
With lacrosse in particular, the team captains are working on strengthening their team morale. The lacrosse team played their first season last year, and this season is their first in the Northwest Conference.
“Since we’re a newer team, we are there to help our coaches get insight into what is going on the team, really into the culture of it all — making sure that culture grows in the way we want it to, really focusing on team bonding activities, volunteering, stuff like that,” Meinhard said.
Being a leader on a newly-established team is a unique experience, especially as Meinhard is one of the oldest members. Though she started playing lacrosse earlier in her life than soccer, and had more experience with it, no lacrosse team existed at LC for Meinhard’s first year of college.
“I was here for a year and played a sport. I could kind of let myself be a follower and be a part of a team, and see what that was like, and then coming in for lacrosse I was one of the oldest on the team, and bringing that experience that no one else really had.”
Grace Smith ’27 is also a captain for the women’s soccer team, and agrees that the duties of the position can be weighty at times.
“I think the biggest expectation is being a leader on and off the field, but also to be a connection between the players and the coaches,” Smith said. “Right now, we’re not in season, so it’s a lot of organizing events and stuff. Our coach wanted us to do volunteering and fundraising, we also do conditioning and captains’ practices once a week. We also set up team meetings and team bonding.”
Even during the off-season, fall sport players keep themselves busy with community outreach, recruitment events and communications, and an allocated number of practices as well as weight training several times a week.
Smith has been a captain since the end of the last season, and is looking forward to next fall. She describes the ways in which being a team captain means taking on many emotional and time-consuming responsibilities.
“I feel like I need to keep my emotions more in check, just being a little bit more regulated in how I’m acting and making sure that I sound responsible,” Smith said. “It’s less affected my school life than my organizational skills. I have a Google Calendar now — that wasn’t a thing a couple months ago.”
Smith enjoys being a part of the community a close-knit team provides.
“I really like that it’s like I have a family through the team,” Smith said. “I think the culture on the soccer team is that we’re all a family. I think that’s what I’m most grateful for, being here.”
From taking care of the day-to-day, logistical upkeep of running a team and keeping a schedule to shouldering the emotional labor of building a positive team culture from the ground up, captains put hard, and at times unseen, work into making sure every sport plays smoothly.
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