How many USTA League teams do you captain?

Captaining a USTA League team is often a thankless job.

Captains have a long list of duties including recruiting and assembling a team, getting players signed up, scheduling, coordinating availability and juggling line-ups (e.g. egos and expectations), arranging practices/courts, communicating with other captains, knowing the rules, and so much more.  And all this is done in exchange for getting to play recreational tennis, perhaps some post season glory, and in some sections a thank you gesture/gift from the USTA at the end of the season.

Nevertheless, many captains come back for more every year, doing it again and again.  At my club, there is sort of a repeating set of captains with "Bob" captaining the 40+ 4.0 team while "Sam" captains the 18+ 4.0 team, and "Bob" and "Sue" captain the 40+ 8.0 Mixed team, etc.  The burden is spread out, and with a few exceptions, generally no one captains more than two teams in a year.

I happened to be looking at some captaining stats though and there are some captains that love the game so much, or perhaps love the "power" being captain gives them, that they captain many more than a few teams every year.  Looking back to 2015, I found 11 players that captained 40 or more teams since then, and that is including 2018 which is just getting started!  I even found several that captained 19 teams in 2017!

You might ask how this is possible?  Well, it helps if you are 55+, as you can easily see how you could get to six teams captaining 18+, 40+, and 55+, each in Adult and Mixed.  And some captains will captain an at-level team or playing up too, or multiple levels in combined leagues like Mixed and 55+.  Add to that that some areas have multiple seasons for a given league and the number goes up even more.  Some players live in parts of the country where they can play in multiple areas/districts/sections so that brings more opportunities.  And then there are alternate leagues like Combo, Tri-Level, and Singles.  Regardless, 19 is still a lot!

Captains will use lots of tools from simple spreadsheets to Web-sites that help coordinate availability, practices, and matches, and some get my reports to aid in recruiting and managing their team or scouting opponents.  Still it is not easy, so thank your captain for what they do, and try to be responsive when they e-mail and ask for who can play when.

How many teams to you captain?  How many would be too many?