Let me put you at a place where I found myself a short time ago. 

After spending two days with Andy Kay’s MICDS team in St. Louis this past March and immediately after meeting with the players, a junior on the team, Alexander Feldman, came up to me and asked, “What is the defining quality for outstanding leadership in your players?” 

How would you have responded in just that moment? There are a number of descriptive attributes that quickly come to mind. Unselfishness, charisma, toughness, discipline, talent and certainly some combination of all these (and others) are included.

I took a deep breath, turned to Alex and said that “fearlessness” was my choice as the single defining quality of outstanding leadership. How many young men and women of college age are willing to stand up in front of their peers and assume a position of uncompromising responsibility to the common goal? They need to be willing to take that conviction to the absolute edge of unreasonableness without going over the line, to say, “This is what we are doing, this is how we are doing it and nothing is going to interfere in our pursuit.” 

One player, fully committed, can lift an entire team. If that player happens to be your best player, all the better. But that’s not the requirement. At the same time, this person needs to be respected by the staff and willing to walk into the coach’s office ready to speak up for his teammates. I am describing a special person.

In 1999, for the University of Virginia, that player was Tucker Radebaugh. When we talk about futility streaks in our sport, Virginia’s 27-year absence from the championship podium had significant status alongside Maryland’s 0-9 record in national championship games since 1975 and marginalizes Virginia’s recent struggles in the ACC and against Duke. Tucker had won the team’s Leadership Award after both his sophomore and junior seasons (respect of the staff) and he was not the best player on the team.

However, he made a personal decision going in to the summer of 1998, and I can still see him from my office window, running up and down the hills adjacent to the practice field in the middle of July holding a 45-pound plate above his head. When the team assembled again in September, it was the beginning of a conversation that defined the sacrifices that would be required to break the 27-year hex. Tuck put pressure on the staff and his teammates, but it was going to get done and, it did.

I have been blessed in my career to have worked at two schools (Brown and Virginia) that may be more likely to produce young men of such singular caliber. I think it is more uncommon, but possible, that a group of young men on a team can work together to produce that laser focus of responsibility. Our 2006 undefeated national championship team at Virginia had a collective will of “nothing gets in the way of the lacrosse.”

We seem to all agree that 2017 has been an unprecedented year in our sport. While I am not convinced that parity has actually arrived, I would be the first to admit that unpredicability is out in full force. What I would suggest to the playoff prognosticators is to spend a little less time looking for the hot goalie or the best faceoff man, and try to determine who has the high-quality senior leaders.  Can you determine which of these young men is inclined to stand up in front of his peers and “assume the position?”

There are so many variables going on behind the scenes in a college locker room that it would be hard to make this determination from the outside looking in.  However, when the postscript of 2017 is written, I will not be surprised if a group of one is not the difference for the winning team.