Busy could barely describe Ricardo Patton before his first game as the NIU men’s basketball team head coach.

Everyone knew Patton was invested in teaching a new group of players his style of basketball. But behind the scene he was also engaged in recruiting, selling his team to donors and fans and trying to get comfortable in a new community.

So when the Huskies ran out of the tunnel and onto the hardwood for their first game under Patton, there’s no wonder why there were still a few wrinkles left to iron out.

“My first year here, there was no real naming of captains,” said NIU guard Michael Patton, Ricardo’s son. “We were at a game and the refs called captains and they said, ‘Jake [Anderson], Ben [Rand], go up there.'”

Now in his second year, Patton and his staff have things working smoothly.

Before the start of the 2008-2009 season, the coaching staff brought the team together to officially name captains. Three names were read off to the players – Jake Anderson, Sean Kowal and Xavier Silas. As the team was ready to clap, to congratulate these players, a voice prevented them from doing so.

“They named three captains, and I thought that was it,” Michael said. “And then they were like, ‘our captain-in-training is Michael Patton.'”

And that’s when confusion set in. Most of the players, including Michael, had one question on their minds, “a captain-in-training, what’s that?”

“It’s just a young guy who has showed some leadership qualities that have garnered the respect of his teammates,” NIU’s head coach said. “I guess it would be like the vice president.”

The idea of a captain-in-training was something entirely new to Patton’s coaching. Patton had never used the system. But during the summer his assistant coaches sold him on the idea.

NIU assistant coach Dennis Gates, one of the creators of the system, described a captain-in-training as a lower classman who has shown leadership qualities and can be a role model to younger players who live in the residence halls. The goal will be to have the captain-in-training be a link between the captains and new players.

“I think when it comes down to it, we have a relatively young team,” Gates said. “We didn’t want to leave it unnoticed how [Michael Patton] impacts the team.”

But it took some time for NIU’s first captain-in-training to find how he could impact the team.

At first, Michael often wondered if he had the authority to be a vocal leader. Not wanting to step on the toes of the three captains, sometimes the captain-in-training was reluctant to speak up or would even hold his voice back.

Struggling to find his role as a leader, the sophomore also was having a hard time finding his place on the court. Last season, the guard averaged 18.6 minutes a game. This year, with a talented freshman recruiting class, Michael has seen his time on the court drop to about 12.6 minutes a contest.

But as the season continued to march on, the captains gave some advice to him. It was this speech that turned the captain-in-training from a title to a functioning position.

“The biggest challenge as a captain-in-training is that feeling when, can I say this because I’m not actually a captain, but I’m a captain-in-training,” Patton said. “But all the other captains said, ‘Hey, whoever is going to step up it doesn’t matter. We’re a team; if you have something to say, say it.'”

After that moment, the guard began to find comfort in his new role. Although his coaches had defined what it meant to be a captain-in-training, it took Patton’s leadership and experience to give the position a definite shape.

But don’t expect the guard to stay in the position that he’s helped to create for long.

“He’ll one day be a captain, without a doubt,” Gates said. “When it comes down to it, one day Mike Patton will be a captain for this team.”

And if Patton had any say for who should replace him when he becomes a captain, you only have to look to a future Huskie.

“We should probably go with a new recruit we have, Tony Nixon, if I were just to throw a name out,” the guard said. “His dedication to the game, his work ethic; you don’t see that a lot in a freshman coming in.”