Leadership group gives a voice to students

Lake Holcombe student-athletes, left to right, Chloe Lee, Ella Hartzell and Trent Lee, spoke to their board of education Nov. 16, about what is happening with the leadership group they are part of at the district. The group was born out of a sportsmanship conference some months before, where the students took ideas and ran with them. Photo by Ginna Young

By Ginna Young

Where do you want to go?

That’s an open question that motivational speaker/author Craig Hillier asked of upperclassmen at a sportsmanship workshop at Lake Holcombe last school year. Now, after attending Hillier’s conference and group-building exercises, student-athletes at Lake Holcombe School are exploring that question.

Since the start of this school year, select students – chosen for showing dedication to sports and school – are taking part in a student-athlete leadership group.

“Having a voice is really important to us high school students and this group gives us a little more of that,” said junior Ella Hartzell.

With the weekly leadership meetings that occur, the students can provide their athletic teams with positive and critical feedback. There’s transparency at the meetings between athletic departments, where the leaders can discuss what’s going well and what can be worked on.

The students then take that back to their teams and discuss it with the coaches.

“Which is really helpful, because we did see quite a bit of change in the volleyball department,” said sophomore Chloe Lee.

Sophomore Trent Lee says the kids in the leadership group have a lot of dedication and commitment to their teams, and would like more kids to join sports, so they are actively working to promote getting involved. He also shared that the group tries to help relationships between coaches and players, such as helping the students realize coaches are not “disciplining” them by making them practice hard.

“They’re just pushing you harder to improve your work ethic and do better,” said T. Lee.

Above all, academics are big to the group, as the students must have good grades and no complaints of bad behavior. T. Lee also says they want to get rid of vaping in the school, to make sure everyone is in compliance with school rules, so no one is benched for unacceptable behavior.

Another component to the leadership group, is requiring the members to have service hours, such as working middle school game clocks, as line judges and in concession stands, and helping organizations outside the school.

“It’s important to serve our community, because they do support us greatly in the departments that we’re in,” said C. Lee.

As a reward and to motivate the kids to stay accountable, the group hopes to go to Lambeau Field at the end of the year.

T. Lee, who attended Hillier’s workshop, said he can see in the other schools who came to it, that they also are trying to implement sportsmanship. That’s precisely what Hillier intended, as he challenged each student to be a leader and ask questions, instead of making statements.

After pushing themselves to fulfill that role, they can then take those ideas and help someone else.

Lake Holcombe athletic director Todd Senoraske says he thinks the more than 20 students in the leadership group are doing very well and that it’s admirable to step into leadership positions.

“They’re the ones who are going to change and uphold the quality school you want it to be,” he said.

“This isn’t about sports and athletics, this is about leadership,” agreed Lake Holcombe district administrator Kurt Lindau, “and all this is spilling over into the classroom and the school environment.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="244"] Cadott student-athlete Brayden Sonnentag (left) paired up with Gilman student-athlete Troy Duellman during the sportsmanship workshop, in team-building exercises. The students were given string and instructions, then had to work together to figure out how to “escape” the string. Photo by Ginna Young[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="178"] Craig Hillier, motivational speaker, was so popular with the students at Lake Holcombe School, that after he appeared to middle/high school students, he was asked to host a sportsmanship workshop. Hillier raised questions that made the students delve deep, and challenged them work on their way of thinking and acting. Photo by Ginna Young[/caption]