OT - rec league dilemma

[Mark Padgett]

Any comments would be appreciated. As I've mentioned, I'm on the Board of our local kids rec league and have been for quite some time. Our policy on picking teams is to have a draft, similar to the NBA. Each HC and AC gets their kid on their team but the rest of the players are drafted. We hold "tryout" nights where kids just are run through drills and the coaches take notes. A few nights later, we hold the draft. The league is for boys and girls in grades 3-12. We've had this program for over 30 years and it seems to work pretty well.

Over the past few years, we've seen the numbers on the girls side drop off so we did some research and were told that more girls would sign up if the could "play on teams with their friends" so it would be more like a "social event". So, this past year we decided to form the girls 3-8 teams by school, hoping that kids would then "recruit" their friends to play with them. It worked and the numbers went up. We also tried it with our 3rd and 4th grade boys teams and it worked there, also.

Once the season concluded, we asked all the coaches who had these teams to comment on the change. So far, almost exactly half liked it and half didn't like it. Those that liked it said the kids really enjoyed playing with their friends and those that didn't said the teams wound up too unbalanced and there were way more blowouts than usual.

We're having our final Board meeting of the season in two days and this will be one of the topics up for discussion. If any of you have any thoughts on this point, please post them. Thanks.

BTW - there were about 800 kids in the program this year.

[Camron Rust]

How about a hybrid....pick the first 2-3 so each team has a similar number of skilled players and then divide the rest based on school.

[mtn335]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

How about a hybrid....pick the first 2-3 so each team has a similar number of skilled players and then divide the rest based on school.

Here's a system used by a youth soccer league I played in when I was little: the coaches drafting all sit in a room and work to create the teams for the league in such a way that they are all evenly matched. The catch: except for coaches' children, the coaches don't know which team they will get! After the rosters are made, the coaches are assigned to the teams at random.

Coaches have incentive, then, to make the teams as evenly matched as possible. This would also allow the coaches and administrators to factor school groupings in as well (trying to make teams that made geographical sense as well as being evenly matched on skill).

[stiffler3492]

Clarify this for me, Mark. This organization-by-school is only used at the 3rd and 4th grade level? And coaches acknowledge the fact that their kids had more fun playing with their friends, but they expressed their concern about blowouts?

Maybe it's just me, but at that age, it should be about learning and having fun, not winning and losing.

[SamIAm]

If the blowouts angle is legitimate, those higher numbers this year might fade if the blowout trend continues.

The Upward Basketball program I work with evaluates the players, then sets the teams based on the evaluation scores. In 1st-2nd and 3rd-4th grade divisions, the teams are very even. In the 5th - 6th grades there always seems to be one low team and one high team with the others in the middle.

All this to say nothing will remove all the wrinkles.

I agree with the stiffler's comments in post#4.

[Mark Padgett]

Originally Posted by stiffler3492

Clarify this for me, Mark. This organization-by-school is only used at the 3rd and 4th grade level? And coaches acknowledge the fact that their kids had more fun playing with their friends, but they expressed their concern about blowouts?

Maybe it's just me, but at that age, it should be about learning and having fun, not winning and losing.

It was used only at 3rd & 4th on the boys side as an experiment. On the girls side, it was used at all grade levels. The "blowout concern" came about mostly from the 3rd and 4th grade coaches (both boys and girls teams) because they said it made the losing team members feel really bad and there was even some crying. In fact, a few of the girls wanted to quit the program after getting blown out. Remember, this is only 3rd and 4th grade kids. BTW - at that grade level, if a team gets up by 20, we take the score off the board plus there's no backcourt guarding at any time.

Putting the girls together by school wasn't much of an issue at the higher grades because they all attend one of two middle schools and we didn't do it at the HS level because they attend only one HS (except for a handful of girls that attend private schools - they were mixed in with the other kids).

[fortmoney]

Originally Posted by mtn335

Here's a system used by a youth soccer league I played in when I was little: the coaches drafting all sit in a room and work to create the teams for the league in such a way that they are all evenly matched. The catch: except for coaches' children, the coaches don't know which team they will get! After the rosters are made, the coaches are assigned to the teams at random.

Coaches have incentive, then, to make the teams as evenly matched as possible. This would also allow the coaches and administrators to factor school groupings in as well (trying to make teams that made geographical sense as well as being evenly matched on skill).

I like this.

One thing my wreck ball league did different this year than when I remember playing was after the regular season, having 2 different tournaments, top half and bottom half based on record. They had two champions and there weren't 5-6 teams that knew for sure they would be blown out in the first round. I think it worked well

[Art N]

Getting the kids to come out to play is off course one of, if not the main objective. Exercise, team play, social interaction, learning a skill, how to be nice to officials and not yell them like dad does when watches TV...uh, sorry, I digress.
I do agree that those numbers could drop in the coming years if the blow outs continue. Kids know the scores and probably get ribbed in school about it.
I'd also ask myself "are they really learning to the play the game properly?" I think one that is over looked when teams are unbalanced is that the "less skilled" team or players may not have many opportunities to set an offense, get off shots, make passes, play real defense...if they are up against more skilled players. The skilled players will take away the ball more...thus limiting the less skilled players chances. If you don't have skilled players out there who can handle ball, pass and shoot, then it becomes a turnover, jump ball fest! (see youth girls basketball)
When I ran a local league, we did a "blind draft". The players were all evaluated by all or a hand full of coaches. Each kid then was given a grade (1 high thru 5 low) based on their skills,...and put on a 3x5 card on one, the kid's name on the other side. So, if we had 5-6th graders together, we noted their school grade, skill #, whether they were potential Guard or Forward (so all the big kids didn't get on one team) and whether their parent was a coach (C) or asst coach (A).
Then we dealt the cards out, names down and built the teams. IF we had two Coaches kids on one team, we'd move them to another for same graded player. Same for asst. coaches. I actually wouldn't allow a coach to "pick" an asst coach, because most of the time they were getting two top flight players on one team right out of the gate. The asst coach knew he was going to help out on his son's team, but didn't get to pick the team!. (see youth baseball coaches who think they are going to the MLB)

[Raymond]

It's for the kids, so I say stick with the policy that results in the most participation.

[JWP]

We did the draft for several years in our community youth basketball league. My last year as a coach, we had six teams, and most of the coaches were parents with kids in the program. We hardly knew any of the kids, and unfortunately, we were unable to have tryouts.

We all got to draft our own kids, but after that, we were just picking names. Or so I thought.

One coach, right after the draft, then went to me and said that his son's best friend and neighbor was on my team, could we trade players, so that he could take them both to games. Real sob story, about how this kid lived on edge of town, parents would never take him to games, etc. Sure, no problem, I said.

Turns out, he did this with three other coaches. All the players he traded for turned out to be the best athletes in the program. We all complained when we realize what had happened, but by then, games had started. Big surprise, his team went undefeated.

After that, a no-trade clause was installed. They have since done away with the draft, and parents are no longer coaching.

(This guy later applied to be the head football coach at the local high school. The look on his face when he walked in and found me as part of the interview committee was priceless. When I asked him about the need for high ethics as a coach, he knew he had no chance. Karma ... a good thing.)

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by JWP

...
(This guy later applied to be the head football coach at the local high school. The look on his face when he walked in and found me as part of the interview committee was priceless. When I asked him about the need for high ethics as a coach, he knew he had no chance. Karma ... a good thing.)

Hilarious.

[Duffman]

The best youth league in our area does two things. The kids are split into 8 teams based on thier schools. The first half of the season the kids play everyone once (7 games) but the score is kept only at the table not on a scoreboard. The coaches are not even allowed to ask about the score in the first half of the season. The coaches spend the entire time coaching thier kids and teaching them the game without any regard for W or L.

The second half of the season the 8 teams are seeded into two four team brackets (A and B). There is a double round robin in which the score is kept on the boards, and following each teams six games there is a two week playoff for each four team bracket with both teams getting two games.

I'm not necessarily a fan of everything in the "participation ribbon" era but I have to admit this is pretty slick. Without a score on the board all the kids work hard during the whole game even in a blowout situation and almost all the focus is placed on helping the kids get better. The referees and the coaches work really well together in this regard.

[twocentsworth]

the largest league in our area has approx. 225 teams (w/ about 2300) kids in grades 2-8 (both boys and girls leagues) and teams are allowed to sign up as a group. for those kids that sign up as an individual, they are placed on a team (either one is formed for them or they are added to existing teams that are low on numbers).

the teams are placed into A-B-C levels to, hopefully, provide balanced competition.

[WreckRef]

Mark,
If having the teams chosen the way they were last season brought up the participation then I would suggest you stay with that.

If there are enough teams you should think about forming multiple divisions. Name them something other than A, B or 1 and 2 even though that is what they are.

At the midway point of the season, evaluate where each team is and then move them around according to their skill level.

This should help reduce the number of blow out games and the kids should have a better time as they are now in more competitive/close games.

[MD Longhorn]

Best league I've had the chance to be part of does the following - using 12 teams by way of example.

Group the players into four groups based on talent, form 3 teams in each group to be as equal as possible (draft works, independent evaluators works too). So now we have teams 1,2,3 assumedly equal, 4,5,6 equal, 7,8,9; and 10,11,12.

First 3 weeks, 1 plays 2, 2 plays 3, 3 plays 1; ditto the other 3 groups.
After that, the team with the worst record in 1,2,3 moves down to group 2. The team with the best record in group 2 (teams 4,5,6) moves up, the worst moved down. Ditto group 3. The best team in group 4 moves up.

So week 4, you still play two games, but the groups changed a bit. It could be 1 vs 5, 5 vs 3, 3 vs 1 // 2 vs 4, 4 vs 7, 7 vs 2 // etc. Do that for 2 weeks - then the regroup the exact same way.

Generally the best teams still end up with the best records, and often a team plays down for 2 weeks and moves right back up, or vice versa... but the games remain competitive. Blowouts kept to a minimum. Nobody is 0-12 at the end (the bad teams play each other a lot, 4-8 is normally the worst record.

This team doesn't use playoffs - so I'm not sure how one would tack that on here... but everyone has fun, and since the kids are playing both with and against similarly levelled kids, they all learn and improve.

(During the "tryout phase", all the kids show up for 2 hours twice a week - they start on a court and after 40 minutes, they move "up" or "down" 2 or 3 kids each in similar fashion to the teams above. They randomize the courts so it's not obvious to the kids (it's usually obvious to the parents who are watching) whether they are moving up or down. This generally gives them a GREAT idea what groups the kids belong in before the teams are formed.)