09/11/2026
TEAM SPIRIT
Getting the most out of your teammates begins with being a better teammate
By Tom Goodspeed
Instructor Forum
Polo Players’ Edition, January 2017
Polo is a team sport, which requires the cooperation and skill of all of a team’s players. Rarely is a team successful when it becomes a one-man show. When putting together a team, it is helpful to find players that will compliment one another, with a good mix of offense and defense.
Teams often have one stronger player to act as a captain. Players have asked me how a captain can get the most out of his teammates. Many players focus on the performance of those around them, while often overlooking their own lack of performance.
Expectations of your teammates’ performance should be within their ability levels. One of my favorite learning experiences came from a teammate handicapped at minus-1. I was rated at 5 goals at the time. I was trying to get a level of performance from the player that he was not yet capable of and I wasn’t doing it in a very respectable fashion.
The player finally turned to me and said, “Goodspeed, I am playing my handicap, why don’t you start playing yours.” His words were spot on. That day made it clear to me that actually being a good teammate might be the best way of getting more from your teammates. A great slogan often used, but seldom practiced is to lead by example.
A great team is one with a “playing handicap” greater than the sum of the actual individual handicaps. The players’ handicap on paper may add up to 14 goals, but a great 14-goal team performs more like a 16-goal team. I am not referring to teams with one or more players playing well above their handicap, more commonly known as ringers. I am referring to a team’s performance being greater due to teamwork. A good captain will work to his teammates strengths, allowing them to play better.
So, how do you get the most out of your teammates? Properly assess ability and mounts when determining player assignments and team strategy. It is not very realistic to have a poorly-mounted 3- goal player trying to mark a well-mounted 6-goal player. Determine if the team has the ability and mounts to speed the game up or if it is to your advantage to slow things down. What of your opponents?
If your No. 2 doesn’t pass the ball and instead tries to run through on every play, the No. 1 is going to be left in front with nothing to do. Be sure your line-up allows the entire team to be useful. And don’t tell the No. 1 to stay with a certain player, then get upset they aren’t open for a pass.
Identify what style of communication your teammates are most comfortable with. Some like constant direction, where others would prefer to keep it between chukkers. Most players prefer feedback in a more private setting, one-on-one, as opposed to in front of the entire field. Most are not going to mind higher volumes as long as you are delivering positive information not packaged with unnecessary remarks.
It might sound like a no-brainer when sitting around discussing it calmly, but is not so easy when running around the field at full throttle. The very reason polo was used as officer training in our military, was because of this very challenging mix of intensity and respectful, effective behavior. The military found polo was about as close as you could get to re-creating the emotions found on the field of battle without actually shooting someone.
It is so important as a team leader to know what kind of motivation works and what doesn’t with the individuals around you. The trick is knowing who needs to get psyched up and who needs to be left alone in achieving his highest level of performance.
It is probably a good strategy for all of us to work on both more respectful behavior as well as understanding disrespectful behavior from others. There is no excuse for disrespectful behavior, but it is also important that our own performance should not be tagged to someone else’s behavior. Great athletes can perform and stay focused in the face of disrespectful behavior.
Stay focused on the remaining time of play and do not spend too much time discussing mistakes unless the purpose is to keep them from continuing to happen in the current game. Use the “next play” mantra a great deal, meaning don’t over think a mistake and instead focus on the next play. If you are in a league or tournament, supplement lessons and stick-and-ball sessions to help with individual or team weaknesses that may be improved upon or corrected to increase the chances of your team’s success. Video review is an awesome tool and is not used as often as it should be. Slow-motion playback in this day and age is stellar.
Coordinate each other’s horse line-ups so you can balance the players’ strings before a game. If one player is on a slow horse for a certain chukker, the other players may want to play their faster horses that chukker. By coordinating the teams horses, you will likely prevent all the players from being on their weakest horses in the same chukker. Too many teams miss the opportunity to share each other’s individual pony line-ups and try to balance their strings before a game.
So, how can you be a better teammate? Work just as hard for your teammates as you do for yourself. Try to clear an opponent from getting to your teammate when possible as just one example. Work even harder when you aren’t on the ball to stay in proper position for the developing play. If you are playing the No. 1 position for example, your primary job is to stop the opposing No. 4 from getting to a back shot.
If you are always working on getting a position of advantage on that No. 4 player and you are not allowing their back to turn the play, you are a great team player. If you are also picking up some passes and scoring goals, that is icing on the cake. However, too many players do not recognize the value of a strong defensive performance. It may be the less-than-glamorous reason for the team’s actual win.
Another aspect not always expected of players is physical conditioning of the ponies and themselves. It is a real handicap to a team’s performance when not everyone is on the same page as to proper conditioning of the ponies and players. Strategy is wonderful, but implementation requires players and ponies to be at least as fit as the opponents. Obviously, the advantage is to be in better physical shape. The conditioning of both the two- and four-legged athletes taking the field is a major factor in the winning formula.
Hit to your teammates’ advantage. Too many players just hit hard and expect their teammates to get to the play. Work on hitting more accurately to set up a higher probability of your teammate getting to a pass. Often the successful pass requires less distance and better angle. Placement is so much more important than just a big hit with little accuracy.
Know your teammates, their ponies, their abilities and their limitations. One of the reasons you see so many family compositions on the great Argentine Open teams is the fact that they know each other so incredibly well.
In my better arena days, I had the gift of having Joe Henderson as my teammate. We used to practice a great deal with and against each other. We would also stick and ball a lot together and just practice passing to each other. We became very familiar with each other’s abilities and even the nuances we both had when approaching a particular ball at whatever angle and that familiarity really translated well to our expectations of each other’s abilities and limitations on the field of play. We knew each other like brothers. Our expectations were very realistic.
Unrealistic expectations on the other hand are just that, unrealistic. Your movement on the field should be based on your teammates’ abilities as well as yours. In lower-goal play, I have heard some players tell teammates to stay too far out front on offense when no one on the team can even hit well enough to get it to them. On the other side of the coin, you will often see players in better polo being too close to teammates who can hit a consistent long ball and are always reacting to the shot instead of anticipating that long ball before the shot, whether it be a forehander or a backhander. Solid play anticipation is being better positioned than your opponent is before the ball is hit.
Always be aware of the location of the opponent you are marking. Before any ball is hit (or changes direction for any reason), make your first reaction be identifying the new line of the ball, the location of the nearest opponent to you as you adjust to the new play, the current right of way to the ball and who may already have established the ROW.
Great team players are running through the various possible play scenarios based on the current position of the ball and the developing proximities of the players as they are moving around the field. They run to a ball with that information already at hand. They run to where a ball is more likely to be rather than to where it was. They plot their course on the field taking in a number of variables including their ability, the horse they are on compared to their opponent, the hitting ability of the player approaching the ball and the options they have with respect to the positioning of their players and their teammates.
There are a multitude of variables developing while at top speed on the back of a horse. It is like a chess game being played while being tossed out of an airplane. You can’t come back to your next move tomorrow (boy wouldn’t that be a gift). Polo requires thinking on the run, literally. Wouldn’t it be great if you could stop the chukker, go to the strategy board or video review screen and discuss possible better play options that were available to you? Than you could choose the best one and hit reset and resume play with the best option discussed during the break, just like in video games. These are great teaching tools I have used, but unfortunately, they are not allowed in tournament play. While polo takes a lifetime to master, fortunately for all of us, it is a ton of fun to play right out of the box.
Team meetings, team practices, strategy sessions, and video reviews are all the foundation to improving team communication and performance in both preparation and during your tournaments and leagues.
Helping others play better together, as well as working on becoming a better team player are wonderful opportunities and gifts.
Photo credit - David and Debbie Murrell
