How We Make Up Teams and Deal with Requests

From the Commissioner:

We would like to remind everyone our policies on requests for players to be placed on the same team and, more generally, on how teams are selected. Some of what we do is mandated by the national rules of AYSO; a lot is just plain common sense.

Before giving you our rules and policies, please remember that AYSO's National Mission Statement is founded on five principles: balanced teams, fair play, good sportsmanship, positive coaching and Everyone Plays. Region 880 is a part of AYSO and we stand for these above everything else and our policies on requests and team selection reflect these principles.

In addition, the process of making up teams is very time consuming work and once the teams have been made up every player move involves more than just that player. It also involves finding a replacement of comparable skill levels (to maintain team balance). We also work hard to distribute players with goalkeeping skills, as well as players with volunteer parents, reasonably equally among the teams. Parents frequently see this from their perspective and don't take into consideration that granting a seemingly simple request can have a wave of repercussions and stretch our volunteer resources beyond breaking.

PART I - REQUESTS

• AYSO's national rules and policies forbid player retention or building teams by strategic placing of assistant coaches. While we sometimes place parent coaches together, we try to avoid this unless it's absolutely necessary. The bar for what constitutes necessity has been raised because, sadly, it has been abused over the years.
• Once your child gets to Division U10 (meaning players 8 and 9 years old) and beyond, team balancing will take priority and no requests will be accepted. The only exception is for brothers and sisters and for children living in the same household where age and gender would place them in the same division. We will accept requests in these situations for the children to be placed (a) on the same team or (b) on different teams.
• What if your team has a practice day that conflicts with religious school or some other commitment that you cannot rearrange? What if you need help with car pooling? We will try to help - but we ask that you first try to help yourself. Please be flexible and try to work something out. Almost always you will get to know someone on the team with whom you can share carpooling and other responsibilities. And don't worry about your children not knowing anyone on the team. One of the joys of AYSO is the opportunity for children and their parents to make new friends and it is done so easily in the context of participation on a sports team. Take advantage

PART II - MAKING UP TEAMS

• In Divisions U14, U12 and U10, we do computer based team building with random coach assignments. The builds take place in August. Our guidelines on team building suggest that the following is a model way to proceed.
• Ratings for the previous season are used and any new child that has not been rated will be given a rating of 2.5 (middle of the scale).
• Coaches will be identified by the eayso software and assigned to teams.
• Teams will be created using a reverse serpentine order based on rating / age / size
• Once the initial draft is done the teams will be looked at and adjusted to accommodate the following: Referees, when known we will try and distribute referee evenly among the teams, and Keepers, when know we will try and place a keeper on each team
• Once teams have been formed, we generally do not add players for at least a couple of weeks, so that we can allocate from a pool of players rather than simply adding the first player who comes along to the first team who needs an additional player.
• In Divisions U14 and U12 and U10, we strongly encourage drafting the "older" and "younger" players separately, to ensure that each team has a proportionately similar number of older and younger players. This avoids the mistake sometimes made by coaches of overrating a player in, for example, Division U12 who was an older player in U10 the preceding year, as compared to a player who was a younger player in U12 the preceding year and will now be in their second year in the same division. An alternative is automatic adjustment of ratings to compensate for the phenomenon that this year's younger player is last year's older and vice versa but this may not work as well.
• Late sign-ups. Late sign-ups, including by players returning from club soccer, and late drops are often a source of problems. Here is how we approach the placing of late sign-ups:
  • First, once teams have been formed, we will delay assigning players if team balance considerations require it. Usually, we don't place players for a couple of weeks until we have as pool of players that is as large as possible. The primary criterion for placing players at this point remains team balance.
  • Second, assuming team balance considerations have been satisfied, we allocate players mostly on the basis of first come first served. We may give preference to a player where we are short of head coaches or, in very exceptional cases, assistant coaches and a qualified parent is willing to head coach the team.
• We will not allow late sign-ups to be used to manipulate the system. In particular, very talented players signed up after teams have been assigned can expect to be placed only after a delay of several weeks or not at all.
• Under the supervision of the Regional Commissioner, the division director always retains the right to make adjustments. Sometimes, even the best laid plans go astray. For example, the switch of players to reunite them with their coach-parent can cause a team to be without an experienced goalkeeper or an assistant coach, while the other team gets two. Coaches and parents must accept that if a seriously unbalanced team is created, we will reassign players or re-make the schedule, although this is a measure we take very rarely. The division director and the Regional Commissioner have unlimited authority to make changes and adjust the implementation of our policy in the best interests of the program and in particular to take steps to prevent and counteract any manipulation of the system.
• Unless there's no alternative (and we are sometimes short of volunteer coaches), the division director generally will not be a coach in the division nor (for any division which has playoffs) will the division director be the parent of a player in that division.