Hey soccer family. Got a rather fun opportunity to start up a middle school team in my town where they've never had a MS team before. The interest and player level is finally at the point that it's made sense to start a team and since it's a feeder school to my high school team, I jumped at the chance to coach it. Now the hard part. I've never had to cut middle school players from tryouts so I'm looking for some guidance here on whether the face-to-face approach is better than handing a letter out afterwards. The high school team I took over a couple years ago was nearly run into the ground (poor coaching drove players/parents/support away) and because I needed the numbers more than talent, I didn't need to worry about tryouts so cutting players hasn't been something I've had a lot of experience with and before I cut my teeth on this with middle school players, I figured I would ask the pros. I've spent several hours reading blogs about the advantages/disadvantages of talking to players and telling them why they didn't make the team. The tryouts will be at a public park, on a Saturday, in mid 30 degree weather. These kids and their folks aren't going to want to hang around while I have a heart to heart with a line of players (especially if they didn't make the team). I want the kids that don't make the team to know what they did wrong and what they need to work on and how to work on it but would a letter outlining that accomplish this better than telling this to a kid that's cold and tired or his impatient parent? I'm open for suggestions here. Thanks in advance.
How many kids will be on the team? How many do you expect at the tryout? Will it be one team for the whole middle school? (I assume grades 6,7,8). Or will it be one team per grade? Is this a boys or girls team? Or coed? Around here, club soccer with tryouts starts as early as 7 years old. Many kids have had to deal with the (unnecessary/silly) pressure for several years.
I didn't respond earlier because I don't have any experience in this area. Is the objective simply to be polite or are you looking long term? In the long term, consider this the start of the off season for the cut players. Be positive. I would treat the cut players the same way you will the team at the end of the season. Have a handout generally for recommendations. Playing unorganized soccer is great. So is playing other sports. A short time daily invested in ball work goes a long way over a year. Dennis Mueller's 1000 touches handout is an example. If there is a lack of playing opportunities in your area, could you interest the school into forming a soccer club for after school play and other soccer related activities? At that age someone who is regularly playing unorganized soccer and working with the ball will surpass someone on the team who doesn't play in the off season.
i was a middle school head coach for the last 3 seasons. i was happy to not be forced to make cuts last fall, but i did the previous fall. our season started a few weeks before the start of school so we had players come in waves. a lot showed up at our first practice. some showed up once they had physicals in to the school. a lot more showed up once school actually started. i made my cuts in waves that season too. i knew how many spots i had so when there were kids who i knew weren't going to make it, i cut them, usually a few at a time. i hated doing that, but our numbers were such that i had too many players to keep everyone until i could cut half of them all at once. for the final cut, i got everyone together and read off the names of the kids i was keeping. i told the ones i wasn't keeping i would be happy to talk to them after practice about what they could do to improve or other options to play. no one wanted to talk to me after they got cut. it sucks for the kids and for you, but it's part of life. i'd prefer my kid learn that lesson in middle school or younger than after screwing around in high school or college for years thinking everyone gets to play or gets a job or whatever.
It's not the same sport, but I know our baseball coaches would organize it such that they would get an activity going that wouldn't require their close supervision and then call every one of the kids over one-by-one and let them know if they had made it, and if they hadn't the kids could ask questions or find out what they needed to improve. Knowing how long that will take I'd guess just takes some experience - otherwise you could wind up with practice running way over and some very upset parents.
I coached middle school boys for a couple of years. I would echo Timbuck's questions. I also do not call them cuts I instead call them selections. One year I actually had over 50 kids tryout. How did I handle this? I used a printer and printed up single sheet numbers. I got notebook page protectors and slid the numbers into the page protector and taped the end of the page protector shut. I brought safety pins to pin them to the players back. I had tryouts set for 3 days. Team consisted of 6-8 that fed a single high school program. Day one... After appropriate stretching. 1. I ran them a mile each day. If you cant run you cant play this game. Even a goal keeper should be able to at least jog around the field. This would run off after day one those that were in no shape to play. 2. Some very basic passing drills. 3. Small sided games side by side so I could walk between them. I rotated teams playing against each other. The year I had the biggest number I used 5 teams with a team rotating out every 5 minutes. 4. Last activity was having them run some sprints to get an idea of speed. Yes its a simple plan but after day one you will see a few stand outs and I would select 5-7 and tell them they were on the team. Tell them to not come back until after the tryout portion was over. Day two. Wash repeat. Hopefully some of the crowd were thinned out by the mile run. I would also attempt to view any keeper candidates. If one of the 5-7 from the day before was more interested in playing keeper I would have them also come back. Choose another 5-9 players. Day three Wash repeat day one. I will also do a defensive drill I used called the three block drill. Cone out three 20 yard x 20 yard boxes. A defender is placed in each block to be continued
A players attempt to dribble through the blocks. If dribbler successfully clears the first block he scores one point the second 2 points and the third 3 points. The player that stops the dribbler or forces him out of the box returns to the attacking line. Attacker goes to the furthest box. Every defender moves forward. until all three boxes have defenders. If the dribbler makes it to the end he scores 6 total points and also returns to the attacking line. This drill help me discover good centerback candidates that may not of showed out in the small sided games. At the end of this session I would have the remaining players vote if they wanted to know right away or have a list posted. Suggestion. Play as many of your team as possible. I would play at least 15-18 players every game. I would try to keep sixth graders that had promise. I would tell them that they might not play a lot but if they stayed with me all season and stayed in shape they would likely be a big part of the team the following season. (Several of these would eventually play on the varsity team when they were juniors and seniors) All of my sixth graders wound up playing in at least one game a year but I made them no promises. You never know who would really grow out of the awkward middle school years and show out and who may not make the grades later. Make sure the game remains fun for the players.