How to choose team captain

[Jacob Bendicksen]

We start the process of choosing our co-presidents by having each candidate give a 3-5 minute speech about why they'd be a good co-president. The entire team then fills out a survey, rating each candidate as 'excellent/good/fair/poor as a co-president' or something along those lines. Some years we'll break it down further into leadership skills, commitment to the team, etc.

The graduating co-presidents then meet with the mentors and use the survey as input as to where the team's leaning. The survey numbers are (of course) kept confidential, so the group is able to use their judgement along with the team's input to choose the next set of co-presidents.

The only strict requirement is that the candidates be rising juniors or seniors. Experience as a student manager makes you a more attractive candidate, as does more experience on the team, but neither of those has been the case for all of our co-presidents. Public speaking skills count for a lot, so that's something that the outgoing presidents and mentors take into account, but we don't have a requirement that one technical and one non-technical student be co-presidents. (It often ends up that way, but it's not required.)

We also use this process for other decisions - for example, our drive coach this year was decided in this manner, and we'll probably use this to choose our driver for this year.