Choosing cheer captains for your team is one of the most important decisions of your season. Your cheer captains serve as a liaison between the coaches and the cheerleaders. It is so important to have a strong working relationship with the athletes you choose to be cheer captain of your team. 

In this post I share ideas for choosing cheer captains for your team. I always recommend getting approval from your administration on your cheer captain selection process to ensure you have their support. 

5 Cheer Captain Qualities

Below I have listed some of the most important qualities for a cheer captain, which qualities would you add or change? Reflect on your values as a coach and write them down. Keep these values in mind as you choose cheer captains.

1. Dependable

It goes without saying that you need to be able to rely on your captains. You should be able to delegate tasks to them and know they will be completed in a timely manner. 

2. Integrity

Your cheer captains are role models for your team. Choose leaders who do the right thing, even when they think no one notices. Choose the cheer captain that stays after to roll up mats. Choose the cheer captain who speaks highly of their teammates.

3. Hard Working

Your cheer captains set the tone for how hard your team will work. Choose cheer captains who push themselves during the workout. Choose captains who cheer loudly and enthusiastically during the entire game. Choose the captain who is determined to hit the new stunt. Choose the captain who does not complain during warm ups.

4. Encouraging

Captains have the privilege of helping teach their teammates cheers, dances, and stunts. We all learn best from someone who is kind and encouraging. Choose a captain who cheers for their teammates and believes in them to hit a new skill.

5. Experience 

Unless you have a new squad, I recommend that your cheerleading captain candidates have at least one year of cheerleading experience, preferably on your team. For example, we require captain applicants to have at least one year of cheering on our team before applying.

3 Ideas for Cheer Captains Responsibilities

These are up to you! Below I have listed a couple of ideas of responsibilities of a captain.

1. Calling Cheers

You can have your captains call the cheers and sidelines during football games and basketball games. Coach them on how often to call cheers. Make sure to plan ahead with them on which material to call during timeouts and quarter breaks.

2. Leading Practice Warm Ups

Captains can be in charge of leading stretching and warm ups. Teach them how they should run warm ups and then you can let them lead. This allows them to have ownership and leadership with the team. It also gives coaches a chance to take roll before practice.

3. Choreographing Routines

The cheerleaders love to create routines and halftimes. You can assign one or two halftimes per year for them to create and teach. This allows the captains to work on their planning, leadership, and teaching. One day these captains could be coaches of their own squads so this is great practice. 

Cheerleading Captain Application

I recommend requiring a Cheerleading Captain Application that includes the following:

• Tryout Score
• Letter of Interest
• Report Card
• Letters of Recommendation
• Signed Cheerleading Captain Contract
• Votes from your cheerleaders
• Interview

Click Here to purchase an editable packet I created to streamline your Cheer Captain Application and Selection.

Try Out Score

Captains should have cheerleading experience. They will be a role model in their character and in their skills in cheer. Captains should be cheerleaders who are working hard to improve and be the best they can be, so this should be reflected in a high try out score!
Looking for tryout Score sheets? I have an entire Editable Cheer Tryouts Packet to help you have your best try outs yet! Check it out here: Editable Cheerleading Tryout Score Sheets and Packet

Letter of Interest

Part of our privilege of coaching is helping to develop skills for our cheerleaders that they can use long after they are done cheering. Applying to be a captain can be similar to applying for a job. 

By asking for a Letter of Interest, cheerleaders can reflect on their values and how they can contribute as a captain. This is also a great way to prepare the cheerleaders for when they apply to jobs in the future.

Report Card

Your cheerleaders probably need to be academically eligible to be part of the team. By checking their grades, you know if your potential future captain will be sure to make grades throughout the season. It would be unfortunate to lose a leader if they do maintain academic eligibility. 

Requiring submission of a report card also reiterates the importance of academics because they are a student first and an athlete second. 

Letters of Recommendation

Requiring Letters of Recommendation is also good practice for cheerleaders to ask for references as they will likely need references in the future when applying to jobs.

You can ask for Letters of Recommendation from teachers at school or adults who worked with the cheerleaders such as a boss, supervisor, previous coach, etc. 

You can provide a Letter of Recommendation from for the references to fill out and submit to you via email, placed into your cheer mailbox at school, mail it to you, or put it in a sealed envelope signed with their name to ensure confidentiality. 

Cheerleading Captain Contract

I recommend creating a Cheerleading Captain Contract listing the captain’s responsibilities and expectations. Have all captain candidates sign the contract during the application process. Have a parent/guardian sign the contract as well. 

This helps clearly state for the cheerleader what will be expected of them and will give you a document to refer back to throughout the season. 

Votes from the Team

Team votes are a great way to collect data on which candidates the team would choose as captain. I would not recommend choosing captains solely based on their votes, but their voice is a huge part of this decision. The team is who the captain will lead and it’s important that the team respects and looks up to their captains.

Interview

You can opt to do an interview with your captain candidates. You can invite back your judges from tryouts to interview the candidates. You can make this a formal interview and ask them to dress professionally to give them even more practice for one day applying for jobs. 

Ask each candidate about five of the same questions. You can have the interview panel score their answers and give their feedback at the conclusion of the interview to help you make your decision.

Choosing Captains

There is not a perfect formula to choosing captains. You should do what is best for your squad. Every situation is unique. 

For example, just because someone is a senior does not guarantee their chance to be captain. You should choose the best candidate for the position.

Announcing Captains

Congratulations! It’s time to announce captains. This is an exciting time for you captains. However, it can also be a disappointing time for the candidates who were not chosen. It is similar to not being chosen for a job, it can and will happen.

Decide on how you plan to announce captains. This year, we told the candidates we planned to send an email out on a specific date at a specific time. We crafted the ‘Congratulations’ emails and the ‘Thank you for your application’ emails and scheduled them to send. We created a graphic to share on our communication app to celebrate our new captains!

Click Here to purchase an editable packet I created to streamline your Cheer Captain Application and Selection.

What is your process for choosing a captain? Comment down below! I am always looking for more ideas to enhance my process of choosing a reliable captain