I am the captain of a quidditch team, "muggle quidditch" if you prefer, experiencing a few more or less regular issues with some of my players. We play a recent sport that puts together athletes from very different backgrounds, I believe this makes it in some ways comparable to youth leagues: while the average player is a college student, most teams don't have a coach, or the coach is just another player, or someone of similar age and experience as other players in the team. This lack of the typical authoritative figure exacerbates problems that are normally solved by the presence of the coach.
So for an example of the problematic "types" of players, I found myself with...
- Experienced athletes who have played other competitive sports and have an ego problem.
- Experienced athletes who have occasional instinctive outbursts towards opponents and teammates, but otherwise fit in well. In other words, normal athletes.
- Less experienced athletes who may be more or less good, with some previous sports experiences - generally at amateur level - who overestimate their abilities.
- Unexperienced players at their first sporting experience.
I have found that:
- on the field 1. and 2. don't mix well with 3. and 4.: the latter don't react well to the more experienced athletes' yelling, sometimes resulting in a buildup of tension, back and forth yelling, loss of concentration, in other cases loss of confidence
- on and off the field 1., 3. and 4. don't always react well to constructive criticism from teammates and respond either aggressively or by ignoring directions; in the case of 4. specifically, more often than not they'll make up excuses for not trying something, or after failing a first time, and lose confidence
How can I promote and insure a better cooperation for team members and minimize conflict among these different types of players? Is there any method normally used by coaches/captains?