It does not matter who is picked first, second, and third, because they are all equally captains. This makes it a combination problem. 12 C 3 means the combination of twelve things taken 3 at a time. The answer is the number of ways to do this. The formula is n C r = n!/(r! * (n-r)!) where the exclamation point is the symbol for factorial. There is also a key on scientific and graphing calculators for finding this. 12 C 3 = 220
