The Secret To Picking Great Team Captains: Captain Interviews
Published: 3/31/26
Last Updated: 3/31/26
Author: Thalia U.
Before You Name Captains, Ask These QUestions: A Step By Step Guide
Whether you’re coaching youth, high school, or collegiate sports; choosing team captains can make or break your team dynamic and leadership productivity.
As head coaches we are responsible for choosing with intentionality, and that starts with conducting captain interviews. It’s in these interviews that you find which athletes align with your coaching philosophy of what you’re looking for next season.
In this blog post I will go through my step-by-step guide on how to properly conduct a captain’s interview.
Program vote?
Who can be interviewed?
Sample questions to ask
Making the right decision after interviews conclude
1) Preparing For The INterviews
We as coaches know that ensuring success means preparing ourselves properly prior to conducting any interviews. The first step in preparing for our interviews is reviewing our coaching philosophy.
A coaching philosophy can be defined as your beliefs/values and ideal culture you strive to embody within each program you are running. It is often defined as your "elevator pitch”/short summary of what you expect as a head coach.
This can look like (but isn’t limited to) buzzwords like:
Coachability
Sportsmanship
“Development over victory”
“All-around athlete” (succeeds in academic, and athletics).
Etc…
Now that we have our coaching philosophy in mind, we need to highlight key words to assist in the questions we ask during the interviews. For example, if my coaching philosophy noted team morale or sportsmanship, I would include a question like “How do you keep your teammates motivated and uplifted during the 5th set, down 5 points?” (Volleyball specific question).
2) Choosing QUestions For Interviews
Now that we have our preparation completed, we can move into the logistics of the interviews before conducting them.
I suggest writing 6-10 questions total. Of those 6-10 questions you will ensure to ask each athlete those same 6-10 questions in the interviews, in an open response forum (answer as much/little as they choose). This ensures equality… but more so guarantees that your assessment of answers is easier to compare between athletes. I always notice big differences and similarities between athlete’s answers which help my final decision greatly (such as someone not saying much, while others say a lot!).
2 sample questions for example/reference:
What do you this (current) years captains excelled at in leadership? What do you think they could have done differently/better?
As a leader, what would your goals be for next season?
See how open ended those questions are? This helps show differing personalities through how they answer. You may notice one athlete’s answer for question two is “Win a lot of games and go to the tournament!” while another athlete’s answers “Have a lot of fun with my teammates, and more team bonding!”. As you can see those are completely different answers… but neither are “incorrect”! As a coach you then get to choose what aligns with your values better for the next season.
I’ve noticed that printing out the questions in advance (with plenty of space to write their long answers) is the easiest set up during interviews. This helps me focus, and hand write their answers physically on paper for quick reference. Typing them out is also another option, but overall the goal is to write down what the athletes are saying (summarized, main points).
3) CHoosing Interview Date(s)/SIgn Up SHeets
Now that we have our intentional 6-10 questions ready for our interviews we can plan for when, and how we will run them.
First, think about what date and time you want to run these interviews. For example, you wouldn’t want to run interviews the day before a big match up, resulting in missed practice to focus on interviews. Instead, you’d likely want to run interviews on a weekend practice, or after school once the season is over. That final decision is up to you but ensuring interviews don’t take up valuable practice time is most important. I have found that running them after school once the season is completed works best.
Once you have chosen your (appropriately timed) interview dates, you will create a signup sheet for your interviews. This includes the date, and “captain interviews (year of season for those incoming captains)” with time frames to choose.
This can look like:
(Date of interview)
(Year) Captain Interview Sign up Sheet
(Date) 3:00pm-3:15pm ___________ (athlete signs on line)
(Date) 3:20pm-3:35pm _____________ (athlete signs on line)
Etc…
4) conducting interviews + Program Vote
Once the date of the interviews has arrived you need to ensure you have all your materials needed to conduct them successfully.
This looks like printing out enough of your packets of questions (if you have 10 interviews scheduled, you print out 13 for good measure) with plenty of space for you to write their answers as you go. If you prefer the typing method, then you ensure you have enough battery to last for all your interviews.
Ensure you don’t go over your allotted time with each athlete for equality. If an athlete has leftover time, you can allow that as it naturally occurs. Typically, 15–20-minute interviews are plenty of time.
An option that some head coaches go for is the program vote. The program vote is when you take each team within your program (example: Freshman team, Junior Varsity, and Varsity) and give them an anonymous vote. This is an optional way for you to gain more information on which athletes connect/stand out to their teammates. This is not a popularity contest, and I mention that before handing out papers for the vote. I list every athlete’s name on Varsity on a white board, and mention that the choice is not “for their favorite friend” but instead the athlete(s) that represent them best and have had their back throughout the season.
5) Analyzing Interviews
Now the fun part… choosing your captains! Taking into account your detailed notes from the interviews, your program vote, and the input from your assistant coaches we can consider who we want as next seasons captains.
First, how many captains do you want? Many coaches opt for 2-3 (but I’ve seen 4 captains a handful of times).
Then we need to consider which answers in the interviews closely aligned with your coaching philosophy. Which athletes are a no-brainer for you to choose? Which athletes do you think would work well together/balance eachother out? Which athletes will be the “yin to their co-captains yang”? This is the time to consider all those nuances!
6) Conclusion
Choosing worthy captains can make or break your season. Especially in the sport of Volleyball where team morale, and team chemistry is vital to succeeding on the court competitively.
Ensure you feel confident in what you prioratize as a head coach, but also lean on those in your program for their input! What do your assistant coaches think/notice? Who did your program vote for? Are there any candidatesthat are a no brainer for you, but maybe your athletes and coaches dont feel the same?
Start the pre-season strong by choosing the right captains! They will be organizing pre and post season conditioning, managing team bondings, and most importantly team morale on the team. Choose the athletes you see authenticity in, but also a passion for the game and their teammates.
Check out my (soon to post) Etsy guide which has 15-20 sample questions to ask during your captains interviews (choose your 6-10 favorite questions). Plus an easy to print and fill out guide for you to fill out during the interviews.
See you in the next blog post!
Warmly,
-Coach T