What would you do? Soccer roster issue.

[Anonymous]

ASA doesn't usually allow playing up. I've known only one team doing that in ten plus seasons x two age levels.

Again it may not be allowed to have three select players anymore next season.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I was mostly asking the question here to get unbiased opinions on what might be fairest - i.e. who leaves the team. It's a call no coach really wants to make, telling a kid they can't play with us anymore. Generally kids leave rec on their own instead of being told to leave.

Making it more difficult is that I'm the coach and the ADP kid is mine. I think we have a clearer case for staying, because my kid's select team is much closer in ability level to rec than a very good travel team. But I am clearly biased, so I can't fairly make the decision, and the head coach is having trouble making it.

For the teams that are struggling to win games even in the lowest divisions, do you know why? Because there are things you can do to try to improve. For one, if the coach doesn't have an assistant coach who helps out at practice, he should. Practices function better with 2-3 adults keeping the level of "silly" down. If I can't make it to practice, I find a sub. Two, if your kids are playing positions, spend some time in practice covering each position. The coaching materials from ASA don't really cover that, so you have to veer from the plan for a couple of weeks before the season starts. Three - goalie. A lot of games are lost because kids have no experience playing goalie and it scares them. ASA does have some goal-tending training opportunities - take advantage of those. If your kid hates playing goalie, find some training for him. I have a bunch of friends who play amateur soccer - I asked one of them to come to practice and work with my kids on just goal-tending. We devoted one practice to this, and we identified a couple of kids (not "select" players) who were better at this and liked it more. We know we can put them in goal in a tough game.

Last, one reason travel/adp girls are stronger players is because they play/practice more. The year my daughter spent in travel, she played or practiced 6 days a week. She is a better player now because of that year. Consider having your rec kids practice together twice a week and get some "touches" on the off days. Have them play winter indoor league and show up for drop-in soccer all summer. If you have a few players on a team that are serious about soccer, you can win even with a whole bunch of kids who don't care that much. (Half of our girls are of average ability.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I was mostly asking the question here to get unbiased opinions on what might be fairest - i.e. who leaves the team. It's a call no coach really wants to make, telling a kid they can't play with us anymore. Generally kids leave rec on their own instead of being told to leave.

Making it more difficult is that I'm the coach and the ADP kid is mine. I think we have a clearer case for staying, because my kid's select team is much closer in ability level to rec than a very good travel team. But I am clearly biased, so I can't fairly make the decision, and the head coach is having trouble making it.

For the teams that are struggling to win games even in the lowest divisions, do you know why? Because there are things you can do to try to improve. For one, if the coach doesn't have an assistant coach who helps out at practice, he should. Practices function better with 2-3 adults keeping the level of "silly" down. If I can't make it to practice, I find a sub. Two, if your kids are playing positions, spend some time in practice covering each position. The coaching materials from ASA don't really cover that, so you have to veer from the plan for a couple of weeks before the season starts. Three - goalie. A lot of games are lost because kids have no experience playing goalie and it scares them. ASA does have some goal-tending training opportunities - take advantage of those. If your kid hates playing goalie, find some training for him. I have a bunch of friends who play amateur soccer - I asked one of them to come to practice and work with my kids on just goal-tending. We devoted one practice to this, and we identified a couple of kids (not "select" players) who were better at this and liked it more. We know we can put them in goal in a tough game.

Last, one reason travel/adp girls are stronger players is because they play/practice more. The year my daughter spent in travel, she played or practiced 6 days a week. She is a better player now because of that year. Consider having your rec kids practice together twice a week and get some "touches" on the off days. Have them play winter indoor league and show up for drop-in soccer all summer. If you have a few players on a team that are serious about soccer, you can win even with a whole bunch of kids who don't care that much. (Half of our girls are of average ability.)

One other way to make your team better, get a couple of travel players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I was mostly asking the question here to get unbiased opinions on what might be fairest - i.e. who leaves the team. It's a call no coach really wants to make, telling a kid they can't play with us anymore. Generally kids leave rec on their own instead of being told to leave.

Making it more difficult is that I'm the coach and the ADP kid is mine. I think we have a clearer case for staying, because my kid's select team is much closer in ability level to rec than a very good travel team. But I am clearly biased, so I can't fairly make the decision, and the head coach is having trouble making it.

For the teams that are struggling to win games even in the lowest divisions, do you know why? Because there are things you can do to try to improve. For one, if the coach doesn't have an assistant coach who helps out at practice, he should. Practices function better with 2-3 adults keeping the level of "silly" down. If I can't make it to practice, I find a sub. Two, if your kids are playing positions, spend some time in practice covering each position. The coaching materials from ASA don't really cover that, so you have to veer from the plan for a couple of weeks before the season starts. Three - goalie. A lot of games are lost because kids have no experience playing goalie and it scares them. ASA does have some goal-tending training opportunities - take advantage of those. If your kid hates playing goalie, find some training for him. I have a bunch of friends who play amateur soccer - I asked one of them to come to practice and work with my kids on just goal-tending. We devoted one practice to this, and we identified a couple of kids (not "select" players) who were better at this and liked it more. We know we can put them in goal in a tough game.

Last, one reason travel/adp girls are stronger players is because they play/practice more. The year my daughter spent in travel, she played or practiced 6 days a week. She is a better player now because of that year. Consider having your rec kids practice together twice a week and get some "touches" on the off days. Have them play winter indoor league and show up for drop-in soccer all summer. If you have a few players on a team that are serious about soccer, you can win even with a whole bunch of kids who don't care that much. (Half of our girls are of average ability.)

That is the whole reason they are doing rec! Because they don't want to devote more time and attention to soccer. They have other interests. If they wanted to practice multiple times per week, and during the winter and summer then they would look for a more intense league! The point of rec is exactly that- it's recreational.

You clearly are missing the point of the league.

[Anonymous]

Well of course your daughter stays, no matter her ability - unless someone else wants to take over your job as coach.

Cut the travel players, let their moms deal with the rest. You might be overthinking too much

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I was mostly asking the question here to get unbiased opinions on what might be fairest - i.e. who leaves the team. It's a call no coach really wants to make, telling a kid they can't play with us anymore. Generally kids leave rec on their own instead of being told to leave.

Making it more difficult is that I'm the coach and the ADP kid is mine. I think we have a clearer case for staying, because my kid's select team is much closer in ability level to rec than a very good travel team. But I am clearly biased, so I can't fairly make the decision, and the head coach is having trouble making it.

For the teams that are struggling to win games even in the lowest divisions, do you know why? Because there are things you can do to try to improve. For one, if the coach doesn't have an assistant coach who helps out at practice, he should. Practices function better with 2-3 adults keeping the level of "silly" down. If I can't make it to practice, I find a sub. Two, if your kids are playing positions, spend some time in practice covering each position. The coaching materials from ASA don't really cover that, so you have to veer from the plan for a couple of weeks before the season starts. Three - goalie. A lot of games are lost because kids have no experience playing goalie and it scares them. ASA does have some goal-tending training opportunities - take advantage of those. If your kid hates playing goalie, find some training for him. I have a bunch of friends who play amateur soccer - I asked one of them to come to practice and work with my kids on just goal-tending. We devoted one practice to this, and we identified a couple of kids (not "select" players) who were better at this and liked it more. We know we can put them in goal in a tough game.

Last, one reason travel/adp girls are stronger players is because they play/practice more. The year my daughter spent in travel, she played or practiced 6 days a week. She is a better player now because of that year. Consider having your rec kids practice together twice a week and get some "touches" on the off days. Have them play winter indoor league and show up for drop-in soccer all summer. If you have a few players on a team that are serious about soccer, you can win even with a whole bunch of kids who don't care that much. (Half of our girls are of average ability.)

That is the whole reason they are doing rec! Because they don't want to devote more time and attention to soccer. They have other interests. If they wanted to practice multiple times per week, and during the winter and summer then they would look for a more intense league! The point of rec is exactly that- it's recreational.

You clearly are missing the point of the league.

+1. OP, people like you are a big part of why ASA rec has such a terrible reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10:38 - this is why they have different divisions. In Division 1, most/all of the teams have at least 1-2 select players. If you're getting blown out at every game, you're in the wrong division. If you're getting blown out in the lowest division, you might need to look at why - are the players not showing up to practice or games? Is the coach not following the drills they provide?

Teams move within divisions between seasons. Teams that go 8-0 or 7-1 in division 2 move to division 1 and teams that lost most division 1 games move to division 2. none of our games were blowouts last year - all the wins were close, which tells me the seeding is pretty good.

I get it - teams should be fair. But when it comes down to telling one girl on a team of 11 that she has to leave, the whole thing sucks. And telling her that not only does she have to leave, but she is the only one who has to leave, and she has to go to a team where she doesn't know the other 10 girls - that's tough. The point of rec is having fun with your friends.

We mainly stayed on our rec team last year when my daughter was also doing travel because she was on a travel team with mostly older girls (she has a late birthday) where she didn't know anyone. Most games that season were total blowout losses, she didn't get much playing time and she would have been really bummed if she hadn't had her rec team to play with also. She likes the girls and the coach and we like the parents, and it's nice to have the continuity.

I like the 2 of 3 playing solution, but what do we do if we're low on numbers for a game? If we only have 7 girls available for a 7x7 format, which has happened, are we supposed to forfeit? (or 6? which has also happened.)

This happened to my son (rec baseball) except he was one of the lower kids on the team. Roughly the same age (4th).

It really, really sucked to be the only kid on a different team. When he found out he cried and his biggest question was why don't my coaches want me on my team anymore. It was so hard and he did not understand as he wanted to be on that team for the camraderie.

What would have made it better would have been if they had split the team in half and added new kids, to make 2 teams, each containing roughly half the kids from the old team.

Then it would be easy to explain that the team split because the rules want to make things more fair and fun for all the kids, vs the coaches are dumping only you because they do not want you any more.

The first way is something that can be explained in a way a 9 year old understands. The second way is hurtful and soul crushing to a kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:38 - this is why they have different divisions. In Division 1, most/all of the teams have at least 1-2 select players. If you're getting blown out at every game, you're in the wrong division. If you're getting blown out in the lowest division, you might need to look at why - are the players not showing up to practice or games? Is the coach not following the drills they provide?

Teams move within divisions between seasons. Teams that go 8-0 or 7-1 in division 2 move to division 1 and teams that lost most division 1 games move to division 2. none of our games were blowouts last year - all the wins were close, which tells me the seeding is pretty good.

I get it - teams should be fair. But when it comes down to telling one girl on a team of 11 that she has to leave, the whole thing sucks. And telling her that not only does she have to leave, but she is the only one who has to leave, and she has to go to a team where she doesn't know the other 10 girls - that's tough. The point of rec is having fun with your friends.

We mainly stayed on our rec team last year when my daughter was also doing travel because she was on a travel team with mostly older girls (she has a late birthday) where she didn't know anyone. Most games that season were total blowout losses, she didn't get much playing time and she would have been really bummed if she hadn't had her rec team to play with also. She likes the girls and the coach and we like the parents, and it's nice to have the continuity.

I like the 2 of 3 playing solution, but what do we do if we're low on numbers for a game? If we only have 7 girls available for a 7x7 format, which has happened, are we supposed to forfeit? (or 6? which has also happened.)

This happened to my son (rec baseball) except he was one of the lower kids on the team. Roughly the same age (4th).

It really, really sucked to be the only kid on a different team. When he found out he cried and his biggest question was why don't my coaches want me on my team anymore. It was so hard and he did not understand as he wanted to be on that team for the camraderie.

What would have made it better would have been if they had split the team in half and added new kids, to make 2 teams, each containing roughly half the kids from the old team.

Then it would be easy to explain that the team split because the rules want to make things more fair and fun for all the kids, vs the coaches are dumping only you because they do not want you any more.

The first way is something that can be explained in a way a 9 year old understands. The second way is hurtful and soul crushing to a kid.

I think this sounds like the best option for OP. That way everyone still gets to play with some friends, and teams can be better balanced within the league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:38 - this is why they have different divisions. In Division 1, most/all of the teams have at least 1-2 select players. If you're getting blown out at every game, you're in the wrong division. If you're getting blown out in the lowest division, you might need to look at why - are the players not showing up to practice or games? Is the coach not following the drills they provide?

Teams move within divisions between seasons. Teams that go 8-0 or 7-1 in division 2 move to division 1 and teams that lost most division 1 games move to division 2. none of our games were blowouts last year - all the wins were close, which tells me the seeding is pretty good.

I get it - teams should be fair. But when it comes down to telling one girl on a team of 11 that she has to leave, the whole thing sucks. And telling her that not only does she have to leave, but she is the only one who has to leave, and she has to go to a team where she doesn't know the other 10 girls - that's tough. The point of rec is having fun with your friends.

We mainly stayed on our rec team last year when my daughter was also doing travel because she was on a travel team with mostly older girls (she has a late birthday) where she didn't know anyone. Most games that season were total blowout losses, she didn't get much playing time and she would have been really bummed if she hadn't had her rec team to play with also. She likes the girls and the coach and we like the parents, and it's nice to have the continuity.

I like the 2 of 3 playing solution, but what do we do if we're low on numbers for a game? If we only have 7 girls available for a 7x7 format, which has happened, are we supposed to forfeit? (or 6? which has also happened.)

This happened to my son (rec baseball) except he was one of the lower kids on the team. Roughly the same age (4th).

It really, really sucked to be the only kid on a different team. When he found out he cried and his biggest question was why don't my coaches want me on my team anymore. It was so hard and he did not understand as he wanted to be on that team for the camraderie.

What would have made it better would have been if they had split the team in half and added new kids, to make 2 teams, each containing roughly half the kids from the old team.

Then it would be easy to explain that the team split because the rules want to make things more fair and fun for all the kids, vs the coaches are dumping only you because they do not want you any more.

The first way is something that can be explained in a way a 9 year old understands. The second way is hurtful and soul crushing to a kid.

Dumping one of the lower ability kids is VERY different from asking kids who already play on a different travel team due to rules about the max number of carded players and cannot even make the practices is perfectly reasonable.

[Anonymous]

14:17 - I'm sorry you feel that I'm a shitty coach in a shitty system because I actually care about the feelings of kids I've known and coached for 3-4 years. I came on here because I have to make a difficult decision that is going to piss people off no matter what I do, and there's no way around it.

I get that people are pissed off at the idea of unfairness. Maybe travel kids shouldn't be allowed to play rec at all. Some teams would still win without travel players, though, and some teams would still lose most or every game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:17 - I'm sorry you feel that I'm a shitty coach in a shitty system because I actually care about the feelings of kids I've known and coached for 3-4 years. I came on here because I have to make a difficult decision that is going to piss people off no matter what I do, and there's no way around it.

I get that people are pissed off at the idea of unfairness. Maybe travel kids shouldn't be allowed to play rec at all. Some teams would still win without travel players, though, and some teams would still lose most or every game.

Seems like a solution that works. Why don't you go with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:17 - I'm sorry you feel that I'm a shitty coach in a shitty system because I actually care about the feelings of kids I've known and coached for 3-4 years. I came on here because I have to make a difficult decision that is going to piss people off no matter what I do, and there's no way around it.

I get that people are pissed off at the idea of unfairness. Maybe travel kids shouldn't be allowed to play rec at all. Some teams would still win without travel players, though, and some teams would still lose most or every game.

Or maybe you should think about the fact that players make choice and must live with them. If your kid and the 2 others are so attached to the rec team, they can just step down from the travel side.

The system is set up so that the kids can have fun and play a little soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:17 - I'm sorry you feel that I'm a shitty coach in a shitty system because I actually care about the feelings of kids I've known and coached for 3-4 years. I came on here because I have to make a difficult decision that is going to piss people off no matter what I do, and there's no way around it.

I get that people are pissed off at the idea of unfairness. Maybe travel kids shouldn't be allowed to play rec at all. Some teams would still win without travel players, though, and some teams would still lose most or every game.

I think if you cared about being a good coach who focused on issues like fairness and good sportsmanship over winning at all costs, you'd be spending your time here on things like pp's suggestion of splitting your team in half so everyone can stay with teammates rather than arguing with someone about a different tangent.

But you do you.

[Anonymous]

Yes -- travel players have no business playing rec level soccer. The whole thing is silly frankly. If a kid is playing on a travel team -- any level -- they will be there at a min. 2 practices and 1 game a week. Add in at least a practice and a game for rec. and you have: (1) conflicts and (2) way too much soccer on going for a young kid and a family.

Once you make the move to any level of travel then stick with it. If you decide travel is not for you and still want to play rec -- great. Go back to playing rec. That's pretty rare because kids typically find out that they are not interested in travel level for whatever reason(s) - and that is absolutely fine - they are also ready to move on from soccer.

There are almost no circumstances where a travel kid should also be playing rec. ball. Dad coaches -- sorry time to move on.