Another season of seeing some teams loaded with kids who could play travel but don't, along with some teams with absolute beginners. Does anyone's club do anything creative to balance out the teams? Something like this: http://www.vyi.org/Page.asp?n=17620&org=vyibasketball.org
There is never going to be totally balanced team in a rec. Your going to have what seems like stacked teams, middle of the road teams and weak teams no matter what you do. One thing you can do is every player has to go into a draft. Don't let any team pick there own teams or say ok when parents want there kids play on another team without going into a draft. But even then the teams will never be balanced.
The best you can do IMHO is let teams have a certain number of protected players, and make them take free agents as well. Reality is that most parents who don't want their child to play travel also want soccer to be a social event and easy logistically. They both lead to putting their kid on a team with their friends and carpooling is already set up. The worst thing in my opinion is putting together a team of new players with little experience. I would rather require minimum playing time for every player, and spread the new players out. Five levels of players seems excessive for grade school. Three seems sufficient - an absolute beginner with some skill, an average player with average skill, and a very good player who is not too athletic or a very good athlete who is not up on soccer. The two extremes - an absolute beginner with no athletic skils, or a very good athlete who is very good at soccer - should be encouraged to go elsewhere. Training in the first case, travel in the second case. I coached a team of U10 girls, and one parent immediately removed her daughter from the team, saying that "she can't play unless she is on her friend's team, so I'll either get my money back or get her on that other team". The best player was pretty good, but she played softball too so she missed half of the games. One of the opposing teams was composed of half former travel players, because the parents did not want to travel. Not only were they pretty good, but they had worked together before so ran rings around my team of new kids. Rec is what it is. There are rec leagues in my area that make cuts. There are rec leagues in my area that take everybody. And our state has many travel teams, of all levels, so there should be no excuse for a very good player to be on a rec team.
In my experience rec leagues don't want to make the effort it would require to regulate the teams and make sure they are more even. I know of one exception, where at the end of each season coaches ranked each player ,not only from their team but the other teams they played. Then with this ranking information, they formed new rec teams for the next year. If you didn't like it, you could find another rec league to play with your friends, but in general, people seemed ok with it
I was a board member of an ayso region for apx 15 years. We rated the players at the end of the season. We did a draft still we had three types of teams nothing changed.
The problem with Rec leagues is that they are exactly what they say, recreational. I too am on an AYSO board, and we spend countless hours balancing teams at the beginning of each season. On paper it works great, but when one teams star leaves to focus on club, and the other teams two worst player quit, the balancing has gone out the window. Then you have to take in week to week attendance that skews the situation worse. The only way we have been able to combat it is to select coaches we can trust that are there to let the kids enjoy the game, that way if a game is lopsided, we use pennies and scramble the teams to make it fair. Unfortunately finding good coaches like that is not easy.
In my daughter's rec league, where they had two dominant teams last season, the league director wanted to re-balance all the teams, but the majority of the parents didn't want to. Apparently they liked the continuity more than they disliked the lopsided talent distribution. I've been told the same thing happened the previous year.
As people are saying, parity seems to be farther down the list of people's priorities. And then of course there are always a few over competitive types for whom stacking the deck is a priority. Think we are in Beau Dure's very youth league and have an example of how parity is a low priority. Last year we registered our oldest for the first time and were placed on a team where all the players were new to the league / organized soccer - apparently the commissioner did not want to break up any of the teams formed the prior year.
My kid plays club but still wants to play with friends - We figure Rec as Un-Organized soccer so it's not that bad. I decided to coach and I found it hilarious that the parents were all so happy that we have enough players for a girls team and that some girls had left the year prior because they did not want to have their girls playing mixed soccer. At 6-7 years old who cares? If these parents only realized that these girls learn a far better game of physical play and aggressivness by playing with boys. Out the window now. Oh well - it's about having fun and we will.
Generally, the coaches with the best teams are serving as officers in the league, so there ain't much you can do... they have the best teams and they run the show. I try to work with other coaches and put together scrimmages that separate the fast and slow players, at least then they can feel the thrill and benefit of facing equals. I'd join another league, but it will be very convenient for both my boys games to be at the same park next year even when one is u10 and the other is u8.
The problem sometimes is in the rating. You could have a player rated as an A who happens to be a very good back.. It doesn't help you score goals. Scorers help you score goals. You take an A rated player who is a back if they only allow you two A players per team. Your going to be short scoring. Problem is there is not enough A players who can score goals. So one team has two A players who can score goals plus a couple of B players who are mids and can score goals at times. You find yourself with others might call a stacked team.
Yeah, this happens when we rely on coach's recommendations for All-Stars. I've had All-Star teams in which zero of the 11 players is interested in playing defense.
I am coaching Rec - two or three u8 teams because my daughter wants to play more as well as with her friends. What I am doing is bringing in 3 coaches from 3 local clubs to guest train during the fall. Each respected club they come from is very different and will help the kids get a more well-rounded experience (I hope). It may also help to drive focus and some more likability for the game and away from the sort of "recess II" environment that generally exists in house leagues. Additionally I am going to introduce them to turf by inviting them to Olympic Park to get a session in with another club. I think the speed of the ball will again provide them with more to digest. Finally I am adding in a 3v3 winter session which is optional for the winter months. This is a paid service and I may terminate that over to one of the coaches at a local club because of time only (my time). I want to build kids who love the sport and want to play - not just have fun with their friends. At the same time I have to remember that this is rec and keep it "fun"
I am wondering if anyone knows of any youth tourneys for the u8 age group that are rec based or not completely challenging? I was thinking of the 3v3 at Soccer City...
If your in ayso they have or they had those tournaments. A great one was held at west point military academy.
It may not be the parents, it may be the girls who don't want to play with boys. I was trying to get some of the girls from my daughter's team to join her at the academy, but none will participate because it is co-ed, and their daughters don't want to play with the boys (and the parents don't want to push the issue). When I ask them why they don't like playing with boys, they say: - they hog the ball and won't pass to the girls - they yell at the girls on their team to pass to them - they get upset if the girl player beats them and say mean things - they play too rough This is a perspective of 7-8 year old girls. I guess if that is their perspective, I can see why they don't want to play...
Then those players are where they need to be at the rec level - and I have no problem with that at all.
I have a now U11 daughter playing at the Classic (highest) level. She says some of the same things when she plays pick-up with the boys. Makes great runs, is well-positioned and the boys would rather try to dribble 3 defenders and lose the ball than pass to a silly girl. Not sure it is a rec-level issue. Boys can be chauvinistic sometimes...
What is classic - development or travel soccer? Or is that a level in Rec. The problem at the development level is that the girls always complain about the boys hogging the ball and not passing. I do think that is a normal issue at every level. BUT the players (girls) who practice with he boys pick up that same mentality. They do not necessarily hog the ball but they get more agressive and often a whole lot faster. We will see if that works in a Rec environment as well this Fall.
Leagues have different names for different levels. Here in NYC youth travel up until under 16 is just A division, and B division. Long island Travel has a lot of different divions. I feel C division and D etc are nothing more then glorified rec.
My daughter has signed my 6 yr grand daughter for a CYO girls soccer league. They had 33 girls register. She gets an email that they have no coaches for them. So my daughter emails me if I would like to coach a team. So I say sure. She tells me she won't be able to do it with me because she has a lot of business during sept and october. So I say why not ask my x son in law to do her team with me. She gets back to me and says he is thinking about it. The league says that is enough kids to do two teams. I guess they never heard of doing small sided teams . I told her not to mention to them on how much experience I have coaching. I have not emailed the guy that runs the show as yet. Should I tell them or just go a long what ever they?
The rec pool is the biggest and gets the least attention. IMO as an experienced coach your involvement could have not only a positive impact on that team but on the age group and club itself. I would tell them