Why the captain is integral to the success of all the greatest sports teams
The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams By Sam Walker Random House 352 pp; $37
What makes the greatest teams in sports so much more dominant, for so much longer, than other teams? The Wall Street Journal’s Sam Walker did statistical and anecdotal research to find out. Here’s what he learned:
1 Who are the best teams, anyway?
Through his own complicated process, Walker actually arrives at a stringent cutoff: a lot of the teams you’d expect to be in his top tier – the 1927 New York Yankees, the late ’ 70s Montreal Canadiens, Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls – aren’t. Instead the late ’ 50s Canadiens and early ’ 50s Yankees are, along with Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics, and Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs ( a surprise), the late ’ 70s Pittsburgh Steelers, the late ’ 80s and recent New Zealand All Blacks (the only team to appear twice and, according to Walker, “the world’s preeminent sports dynasty), the early ’ 80s Soviet hockey team, Lionel Messi’s Barcelona club, the late ’90s United States women’s soccer team, Pele’s Brazillian team, and perhaps the greatest team of all, the Mighty Magyars – Hungary’s national soccer team in the 1950s.
2 What do these teams h a ve in c o mmon?
Well, the book’s title gives it away. In examining Bill Russell’s captaincy of the Celtics, which began with a legendary chase-down block (echoed by LeBron’s last year) in Boston’s first finals win – “A supreme expression of desire” – Walker realized that the Celtics’ dominance completely overlapped with Russell. Walker then discovered that all of his top-tier teams’ dominance corresponded with a singular captain.
3What makes a great captain?
Walker sets out a series of attributes: They lack superstar talent – but more than make up for it. They aren’t fond of the spotlight – but aren’t afraid of it. They don’t “lead” in the traditional sense – it’s not Hollywood charisma. They are not angels – many of their most famous moments don’t make inspirational posters. They do potentially divisive things – they speak truth to power and to teammates (“It’s a totally romantic idea that you have to be eleven friends,” says Bayern Munich captain Philipp Lahm in the book). They aren’t the usual suspects – a generational talent usually doesn’t become a generational leader. Finally, the captain isn’t the primary leader – there are still coaches and management above.
4 What do captains do?
In short, everything they need to, and often what stars don’t want to do. They play defence; they do the grunt work; they are “water carriers,” according to Walker. Though he doesn’t make the book, and his team doesn’t make Walker’s top tier, Bob Gainey of the 1970s Canadiens was an exemplary captain: a defensive forward and a calm leader on the ice. It was superstar teammate Guy Lafleur who transfixed the crowd, but one of Gainey’s biggest fans was coach of the tier-one Soviet hockey team, Viktor Tikhonov, who allegedly called Gainey the most complete player in the world. Captains are often good passers and great with assists, which Didier Deschamps, captain of France’s 1998 World Cup- winning squad, puts this way in the book: Yes, he passed the ball so Zinedine Zidane could score spectacularly – but Zidane relied on him to do so. (Side note on Zidane: his memorable headbutt in France’s 2006 World Cup final loss to Italy? It actually could have been a captain-esque move. He just did it at exactly the wrong time.)
5Do captains want to be captain?
No, they want to win. “One of the great paradoxes of management is that the people who pursue leadership positions most ardently are often the wrong people for the job,” writes Walker. “They’re motivated by the prestige the role conveys rather than a desire to promote the goals and values of the organization.” Great captain do not necessarily promote the goals and values of the organization – they completely embody the goals and values of the organization.