In the lingering moment after Ohio’s coaching staff gives its final speeches and the Bobcats watch the opening kickoff sail through the air to signal the season’s start, someone has to take the floor, whether in the locker room or pre-game huddle.
The Bobcats have four captains. One is in his second year wearing the coveted “C.” Another leads the offense under center. The remaining pair command Ohio’s defense, though one is sidelined with a season-ending injury.
From the outside looking in, there’s not one obvious go-to player for the team to turn to in situations like those.
And that’s how the Bobcats’ leadership corps like it.
“It’s really nice because it gives you many different types (of leadership) they can expect out of you,” said captain Travis Carrie, a cornerback who is out for the year because of shoulder surgery. “We all have one common goal, but we all say it, or get it out to the team, in different ways.”
Just as the players take different roles on the field, they do as such away from the gridiron. Even though captain selections are made in late June, summer workouts are a time for the team’s upperclassmen to step up and show their experience.
It is then when the captains see their teammates gravitate toward one particular leader or another. Junior quarterback Tyler Tettleton said players tend to drift toward older teammates at a position similar to theirs. He works closely with many of the skill players, he said.
As expected, not every player regularly looks to one of the captains for guidance. Tettleton said players such as Eric Herman and Vince Carlotta, fifth-year offensive linemen in their own right, are role models for younger players learning to hold their own in the trenches.
Tettleton views his new role as a captain less as a rah-rah responsibility, but more of a behind-the-scenes motivator.
Regardless, Ohio coach Frank Solich said the Bobcats have “the right guy” under center.
“Our players love playing for him,” Solich said. “He never points a finger and always has the demeanor you want in a quarterback.”
Tettleton is the youngest of the captain group — the remaining three are fifth-year seniors. The elder statesman is undoubtedly tight end Jordan Thompson, who is Ohio’s lone two-year captain and was the only junior in last year’s seven-captain class.
Even though he learned from some of Ohio’s best in recent memory in 2011, Thompson’s leadership experience is not limited to his upperclassman years.
Solich said Thompson’s true colors were beginning to shine through as early as his true freshman season.
“He was a very bright, goal-oriented guy when he showed up on campus,” he said. “Sometimes you have to work with your players toward those deals — not Jordan. He already had that going for him when he showed up.”
Safety Gerald Moore is made from a similar mold. He was named a freshman all-American and played in every game in 2009.
The offseason and fall practice schedule are often thought of as a time for teams to band together and establish commonalities leading up to the season-opener. That’s true in many cases, but Carrie said the Bobcats were so caught up in accomplishing their offseason goals that they sometimes forgot to catch up with one another.
“You go through so many competitions in the spring and summer where you kind of lose the relationship that you might have with a defensive player or a special teams player just because you’re competing every day,” he said. “We all need to come together more as one.”
That mission will be put to the test as soon as the opening kickoff is caught and the new season is underway.
jr992810@ohiou.edu
