At the beginning of the year, Amelia Pierce had been told that none of the teams had assistant captains (and in Aladren's case, they didn't even have a captain). Teams were still in the process of forming, and assistants were needed immediately. She hadn't known any of the players involved, so she took the easy way of selection. She'd picked the oldest non-senior on each team and appointed them. Where there had been more than one option, she'd gone to Amelia Fox's notes, and decided based her decision on the former coach's assessment of their relative abilities.
This year, she had a better idea of who the players were and was willing to give each of the captains a choice in the matter. So she sent an email to both of the assistants that would be promoted to captain next year and arranged a time to meet them in their common rooms.
Right now, a few minutes before the first of those meetings, she was in Aladren, looking for Thomas Fitzgerald. When he arrived, she stood up, "Captain-to-be Fitzgerald," she greeted him with smile and an outstretched hand. "Glad you could make it. I just wanted to talk to about your responsibilities for next year and see if you had any ideas about who you'd like for your assistant."
As they sat down opposite each other on two of the common room couches, she approached the more immediate decision first. "Did you have a preference on who I appoint to the assistant position or should I just assign someone to you?"
0Coach PierceMeeting with Thomas Fitzgerald0Coach Pierce15
Thomas liked to be early for his appointments, a trait drilled into him by his mother practically from birth, but CATS were a time-consuming business and the line in the library had run long. He made it back to Aladren on time for his meeting with Coach Pierce, but it was a close enough thing that he barely had time to notice that Fawcett wasn't having a mild fit over a Crotalus having invaded the inner sanctum. Going up to his room to drop off the stack of books he was carrying was, to his displeasure, unfeasible without making the coach wait, which didn't strike him as the most politically savvy move he could make. He did have to deal with her for two more years.
"No problem, ma'am," he assured her, shaking hands with one hand and keeping the books balanced with the other. Thomas supposed he looked like the very image of a nerd instead of the controlled, ambitious image he personally preferred, but there were some skills and habits every Aladren managed to pick up along the way. Besides, it was exam semester, and the CATS and RATS could destroy their lives if left unattended to. Even most Pecaris could get caught reading sometimes.
Since he wasn't the type of Aladren who made heavy book transport something of a sport and science, though, Thomas was glad enough to put his reading down on the table between the sofas as Coach Pierce laid out what she wanted to talk about. Succintly and to the point, which suited him fine; he only wished he had given the issue more thought ahead of time so he could have given a quicker answer. He felt he was above average in skill at thinking things through quickly, but never half as good as he was at analyzing each angle over a period of time before he looked at them all together.
"Well," he said, "off the top of my head..." He ran through the options again, as quick a review as he felt to be remotely prudent. "I'd say Jera Valson or Daniel Nash. I expect they'll both be prefects, too, but Gray's too old, Edmond's probably too young, and Juri's too quiet." He thought those were diplomatic enough statements for short notice. "That's all I can really think of there, Coach."
OOC: Sorry for any errors in the text or HTML; I'm kind of good-computerless right now.
0Thomas FitzgeraldAppearing as requested109Thomas Fitzgerald05
Amelia nodded along as Thomas made his opinions and observations about his teammates. They paralleled her own, and she would have been glad to confirm either of his top choices. "If you don't have a preference, I'll put Jera Valson down as your assistant. She does have a year of seniority over Mr. Nash."
While she didn't want to base selection solely on age, it did promote maturity, responsibility, and experience. Amelia had every confidence Jera would demonstrate those traits. She also expected Daniel would demonstrate them after her. But if Daniel took the assistant captaincy now, Jera would never have that chance.
"I'll let you give her the good news unless you have an objection to doing so. Otherwise, you're responsible for putting up sign-ups in September, running try-outs and practices, and getting me your team roster within three weeks of school starting. Just drop into my office or send me an owl to let me know when you want to reserve the Pitch for Aladren. Anything else you want to ask me while I'm here?"