Southeast's player-elected council a first for Redhawks' football team

Part of Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz's plan for the program is for it to eventually be led by the players.

The first step in getting to that point is the player-elected leadership council.

The spring leadership council is comprised of wide receiver Paul McRoberts, linebacker Matt Starks, quarterback Blake Jackson, fullback Ron Coleman, linebacker Wisler Ymonice, linebacker Roper Garrett, wide receiver Spencer Davis and cornerback Reggie Jennings.

These players will lead their team through the spring practice schedule. The Redhawks will hold their fifth spring practice today at the Rosengarten Athletic Complex.

"We didn't have nothing like this at all [last year]," McRoberts said. "It was just mainly the coaches taking care of everything and you know, they leaned on the captains ... but I felt like they thought the coaches were going to take care of everything."

These eight players were voted to the council by their teammates, with McRoberts being the leading vote-getter.

"The purpose is to give the team a voice and to identify the leaders and also empower the leaders," Matukewicz said. "There's a lot of decisions. You know, I make a hundred decisions a day, 20 of them I don't really care about -- what socks you wear, what we eat after pregame and all those things. Those are what the players' leadership council is for, to make the decisions like that.

"We'll take that next step when it's a player-led program. Right now it's a coach-led program and that's fine, that's the way it probably should be at first, but then eventually I've got to trust these guys that I can turn the team over to them. Because you know, I've got all these rules where I can only be around them 20 hours a week, so what's going on on Saturday -- they've got to be able to handle those things and Sunday when coach ain't around."

"I set a standard. You hold the team to that standard when I'm not around," Matukewicz added.

The first Redhawks' leadership council has been in place for nearly two months. There will be a new election prior to summer practices and again after fall camp.

Matukewicz did give his players some criteria for what types of players he wanted on the council but ultimately left the decision up to his team.

"It's not just about their ability," Matukewicz said. "A leader's got to not care about being popular, those type of things. You know, if he's got a 2.2 [GPA] he's not on the leadership council. Like he's got all areas -- he can't have any holes in his game to be on the leadership council."

Matukewicz said the players have embraced the concept, and that "it really gets ramped up" in the summer when he'll have speakers each Wednesday night speak to the council about leadership.

"Just like any player that comes through my organization, I want them to have more success in life because they've come through my organization," Matukewicz said. "That's at the end of the day what I'm looking for. If you're on the leadership council, you're kind of entering a new type of leadership where you're putting yourself behind maybe some other guys. They're the ones that should be cleaning the fields, they should eat last, they should have a servant mentality and that's where you try to get them to understand that final phase of leadership."

Matukewicz saw a leadership council implemented under coach Jerry Kill, who he coached under at Southern Illinois University and Northern Illinois University and who is now the head coach at the University of Minnesota.

He always knew that when he had the opportunity, he'd bring the concept to his own program.

Part of the role of each council member is to serve as leaders of a team, and each team competes to earn points through different actions.

"I changed it a little bit. We had a lot more manpower, so I didn't want it to be a science experiment every day with all these points systems, so it's pretty cut and dry, but I know the players appreciate a competition," Matukewicz said. "And I feel like this was a little more like an intramural program before I got here. You know, that everything was kind of fun and it's OK, and we turned the heat up a little bit once we got here."

The point system that Matukewicz referred to began when the eight council members drafted players to their teams.

The Redhawks had what Matukewicz called "the 2014 Southeast Missouri State draft."

Each of the players drew a number out of a hat to see what order they'd get to select their teammates in and then they went round-by-round until each team was in place.

The teams earn points for winning competitions on the field and in the weight room as well as for things like community service, academics and attending other Southeast sporting events.

Players can also lose points for their team for missing classes or other discipline issues.

A winning team and losing team are determined each week, with the losing team having to do their Friday workouts at 6 a.m.

The competition continues with the members of the overall winning team receiving a prize.

"It amps everybody up to where they feel like they want to fight," Starks said. "If it wasn't for them to just do it individually, they really want to fight for their team because if somebody got in trouble on your team or if you get in trouble on your team, your team takes a loss, everybody takes points off and stuff. It just keeps the morale on our team up."

Starks added that it's also beneficial to the team in other ways. He's hopeful that by attending the games of the other Southeast teams, they will do the same in return when football season rolls around, and also thinks it could create a better connotation with the phrase "football team" within the community.

McRoberts echoed similar thoughts on how it's affecting the team.

"I feel like this year we've got a great coach," McRoberts said. "I mean, Coach Samuel was great, but we've got a great coach that holds us to a higher standard, and that's big. Because it pushes everybody and motivates everybody to do their best instead of just like, 'OK, let's do this OK today. Let me go to class a little late.' Everybody don't want to be late to class because they know there's consequences. You know, it's like they're scared. And that's what we need, somebody to scare us and make us. You know, we shouldn't even have somebody make us do it, we should want to do it, but if we need that extra push we've got it. We definitely don't want to look bad as a team so everybody's on their job."