FCYBL-is this allowed?

[Anonymous]

My friend told me her son and some of his friends didn't make the McLean FCYBL team because they brought in an AAU team and their coach to play as the first team, so her son got bumped off the B team to make room for the former A kids, who had been bumped by this team of AAU kids.

Are leagues allowed to put up an entire AAU team as "their" team? It seems shady since AAU teams play together year round, and FCYBL teams just started practicing. My kid is playing in the same division as the secret AAU team and that sucks that they will have no chance against this team.

[Anonymous]

I thought you had to live in the specific zip codes to play on teams.

[Anonymous]

It’s done. Not sure if it is allowed but if all the players are from a specific zip code, then they can play.

[Anonymous]

They aren’t exactly being sneaky about it. The coach posted pictures online of both teams and it is basically the same exact group of kids.

It is strange that an entire AAU team would all live in Mclean though.

Glad my kid is playing in D2. And that he didn’t have to go to a fake tryout, that sucks for the McLean players.

[Anonymous]

Did the boys play on McLean Select last year? It's possible they got pulled to the AAU team from there.

[Anonymous]

It's definitely unfortunate, but assuming the players meet the FCYBL zipcode requirements, there is nothing in the FCYBL rules to prevent it. But you can probably crossfile this one in the "sham tryouts" thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did the boys play on McLean Select last year? It's possible they got pulled to the AAU team from there.

Six out of the 12 players from last year are on the 10 person roster posted this year. Four new names this year on the A team that weren't on Mclean's A or B teams last year. As well as different coach and assistant coach (the assistant appears to be the AAU team coach). So half the kids who got to play last year were cut this year or relegated to the B team. That is pretty harsh. In our podunk small org, usually almost all the kids get back on their team the next season. I bet the AAU kids start and the McLean kids warm the bench.....

FCYBL publishes the rosters for each year on their site.

So it looks like they shrunk the A team roster size (probably to get more play time for these AAU stars) and then cut kids to make room for some kids from this AAU team. Which bumped some of the B kids back to rec. If FCYBL doesn't care if AAU teams compete together (I always thought this wasn't allowed for obvious reasons) then the only issue is if they have more than two non-Mclean kids out of the ten rostered players. No one likes their Mclean kid being cut to make room for some kid from another zip code. And 20% of your team being non-Mclean is a lot.(Assuming the rest of the kids live in Mclean). I wouldn't be thrilled with the situation either.

The assistant coach has posted pictures of the AAU team and the Mclean team online and they are almost the exact same group of kids.... No one can accuse him of subterfuge lol. He is literally calling the team "Mclean Select/AAU Team" as if they are interchangeable.

[Anonymous]

Are you sure the AAU team isn't from all the same zip? I think the roster shrunk back to normal this year. Last year (COVID), they had bigger rosters because they had fewer teams so it's not to give AAU starts more playing time lol

But sham tryouts are upsetting so I am with you and your friend on that issue and it certainly sounds like there was a sham tryout. They should have just had a C team.

[Anonymous]

We usually have 11-12 on our FCYBL teams. Last season everyone HAD to have 12.

The bigger leagues that usually field three teams (not sure if McLean is one of these) were told by FCYBL that they could only have two teams this year. Not sure what the rationale was on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you sure the AAU team isn't from all the same zip? I think the roster shrunk back to normal this year. Last year (COVID), they had bigger rosters because they had fewer teams so it's not to give AAU starts more playing time lol

But sham tryouts are upsetting so I am with you and your friend on that issue and it certainly sounds like there was a sham tryout. They should have just had a C team.

With the numbers pp posted, it sounds like the existing AAU team looked at its roster, figured out which FCYBL member org had the best zip code overlap with its existing AAU team roster (some of whom might have played for mclean select last winter, maybe?), and then used the two-zip-code exceptions for the two best AAU team players (one of whom must be the new mclean coach's kid b/c it looks like he is not from McLean). I'm sure it seemed really shady to the regular McLean parents, a new coach running tryouts not from their program who doesn't even live in Mclean, coming in with his AAU team and picking them all at the tryouts. What's surprising is that the Mclean basketball program was OK with handing their team over to a random guy just using them to get access to the FCYBL league.

[Anonymous]

From the photos the coach posted online, it looks like 7 or 8 overlapping players between the AAU team and the McLean Select first team. And that's if no kids were missing from either photo. So best case scenario for the Mclean kids was that 7-8 spots out of 10 on this team were "taken" before the tryouts began. That does suck and really doesn't speak well to the McLean basketball org that they would allow their team to be taken over like this.

And hard for the real FCYBL teams to compete against 8 kids who have been playing together year round for years while many of the FCYBL member orgs had zero basketball programming for their players since Covid.

Its kind of gross of this guy to shop his team around trying to line up a stacked team to compete in a community basketball league. Even if it technically follows the rules. I have no idea if any of these kids do or don't live in McLean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the photos the coach posted online, it looks like 7 or 8 overlapping players between the AAU team and the McLean Select first team. And that's if no kids were missing from either photo. So best case scenario for the Mclean kids was that 7-8 spots out of 10 on this team were "taken" before the tryouts began. That does suck and really doesn't speak well to the McLean basketball org that they would allow their team to be taken over like this.

And hard for the real FCYBL teams to compete against 8 kids who have been playing together year round for years while many of the FCYBL member orgs had zero basketball programming for their players since Covid.

Its kind of gross of this guy to shop his team around trying to line up a stacked team to compete in a community basketball league. Even if it technically follows the rules. I have no idea if any of these kids do or don't live in McLean.

LOLz at McLean parents crying and whining about some kids taking their spots especially if it's within the rules. McLean soccer does this all the time--recruiting players away from other clubs... recruiting over their existing player pool. Why would you expect anything different for basketball?

OP you never commented on whether or not the new players actually ARE BETTER than the A and B team players. I guess money can't buy you everything, McWhiney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's definitely unfortunate, but assuming the players meet the FCYBL zipcode requirements, there is nothing in the FCYBL rules to prevent it. But you can probably crossfile this one in the "sham tryouts" thread.

Except that FCYBL is NOT policing zip codes this season. Sure they say it on their website that you can only have 2 out-of-zip players. But they've told coaches they're not collecting the proof documents (school docs, utility bills etc.) they usually require to ensure compliance. So might as well not even have the out-of-zip rules at all.

As to the above, it's really sad that they're letting folks co-opt what's supposed to be a community basketball league. Making teams that have legitimate tryouts and aren't playing together all year round face up against AAU teams that have been practicing non-stop together is blatantly unfair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the photos the coach posted online, it looks like 7 or 8 overlapping players between the AAU team and the McLean Select first team. And that's if no kids were missing from either photo. So best case scenario for the Mclean kids was that 7-8 spots out of 10 on this team were "taken" before the tryouts began. That does suck and really doesn't speak well to the McLean basketball org that they would allow their team to be taken over like this.

And hard for the real FCYBL teams to compete against 8 kids who have been playing together year round for years while many of the FCYBL member orgs had zero basketball programming for their players since Covid.

Its kind of gross of this guy to shop his team around trying to line up a stacked team to compete in a community basketball league. Even if it technically follows the rules. I have no idea if any of these kids do or don't live in McLean.

LOLz at McLean parents crying and whining about some kids taking their spots especially if it's within the rules. McLean soccer does this all the time--recruiting players away from other clubs... recruiting over their existing player pool. Why would you expect anything different for basketball?

OP you never commented on whether or not the new players actually ARE BETTER than the A and B team players. I guess money can't buy you everything, McWhiney.

I don't know what the rules are for soccer--do they have zip code rules? For this league, your players have to come from your specific assigned zip codes. You get two exceptions.

[Anonymous]

No, soccer doesn't have zip code rules. There's no point comparing soccer and basketball.