Spring League is upon us!

Spring League is upon us!

I have to admit, Shutterfly is a GREAT tool for team management.  They have a deal with AYSO to generate the teams automatically, and it is fantastic!  We got an email stating that several thousand sites need to be setup to keep the deal going, and I really hope that they keep it!

Besides having the roster automatically generated, you can add and change the rosters.  You can add photos.  You can put in the practice schedules and games with the address; parents can get a map autogenerated.  And the system will automatically email reminders for each event.  You can assign things like the snack schedule, or let parents sign up themselves.  You can send mass emails to the whole team, and parents can up load photos and videos to share.

All in all, it makes managing the team a piece of cake!

I spent a little time tidying up the roster with new players, then entered the games and 1st meeting, then sent out a mass email to everyone so they can view it and sign up for snacks and refereeing.

Shutterfly - not just for photo albums anymore!

12 years and counting...

Wow.  We started playing soccer 12 years ago; since that time I've been a coach, a referee, a referee instructor, referee instructor evaluator, statistician, an Assistant Regional Comissioner, and Director or Referee Instruction.  My blogging here has been sporadic; I doubt that anyone has ever read these pages (except me).  But I press on...

Our region's leadership has been a problem for the past 5 years.  The RC was checking out his 2nd year - to be fair, his predecessor had done some serious damage to the volunteer infrastructure and the new guy was done.  The next RC finished the job, driving away most of the serious volunteers, and keeping sycophants and cronies around, ignoring the regional guidelines for her self serving purposes, and generally screwing up the region and driving away whole families.

We have a new RC now; we have a board that seems willing to work hard together - but we still are having trouble with lone wolfs making unilateral decisions affecting other people and their jobs.  This has already lead to the registrar resigning in disgust. 

Hopefully, all will get better; it can hardly get any worse!

Season starts Saturday!

Well, we are here at the brink.
I managed to meet the BU8 team today; we picked a name.
Since the uniforms were black and white, it came down to the wire for Dark Eagles, and Killer Whales.
Dark Eagles won!

We then had a little practice; we'll see how we do on Saturday!

Sportsmanship Matters - part two

Here is something I wrote for the parents, to explain the new policy:

Sportsmanship: fair play, respect for opponents, and gracious behavior in winning or losing.


Sportsmanship matters: The coaches and referees are volunteering their time – not just for this game, but also in practice, training, and certification. They deserve to be treated as you would expect to be treated.

Sportsmanship matters: Kids make mistakes; shouting directions at them is at best confusing, at worst contradictory to what the coach is directing and training them to do. Let them play, and they will learn to make decisions on the field.

Sportsmanship matters: The referee team has been extensively trained in the Laws of the Game; their knowledge of the Laws and nuances of the Game may be more extensive than yours. Certainly shouting at the referee won’t improve the game, and can lead to loss of points and dismissal from the field!

Sportsmanship matters: The Region, the referees, the coaches, and the players are all counting on YOU, the parents, to be good role models.

Sportsmanship matters: So much, that the Board has instituted a new regulation: teams which don’t earn at least 95% of the maximum sportsmanship points for the year are not eligible for the playoffs. There are 25 possible sportsmanship points each game – losing 2 points every game will make a team ineligible!



Coach’s and player’s behavior can affect sportsmanship points, but so can spectator’s behavior. Of the five categories for sportsmanship, two are related to spectators. Below is an excerpt from the Region’s sportsmanship guidelines that are given to each referee – the sole arbiter of sportsmanship during a game.

These deductions are per incident during the game, and are cumulative.

Conduct of Spectators

For a warning or caution -1

For a send off -5

Violation of the standards of good sportsmanship -1

Noticeable acts of good sportsmanship toward other team +1

Courtesy towards Referee (includes comments about referee calls)

Discourtesy by a coach -1

Discourtesy by a player -1

Discourtesy by a spectator -1

Noticeable acts of courtesy +1

Sportsmanship Matters

I got tired of sportsmanship being a sidebar.
Our coaches can ignore sportsmanship completely, perhaps miss a game or two and move right on.
Normally sportsmanship is a tie-breaker; however the top teams rarely are close enough that they would be in a tie - so there was no real reason to cultivate sportsmanship.

Last year we tried tying sportsmanship to the points accrued; for instance, if the team would have normally scored 10 points for a 3-0 shutout, but only receved 90% of the sportsmanship points (missed 2 points, for instance) - the team would only receive 9 points.

This really only affected a few of the mid-level teams, so once again was not a real attention getter.

THIS year, we have a new plan:  if a team fails to maintain 95% of their maximum sportsmanship points - they are not eligible for playoffs, after season play, etc...

We have met the enemy, and he is us...

Well, our RC had a family emergency, and had to leave the state.
As you may know...August is a KEY time in the life of a region - Games start in September!

So a number of concerned board members got together and started doing what needed doing:
We found and assigned division commissioners.
We tried to prep the field(s).
We inventoried our goals (poor shape).
We generated our calendar:

1. We set regular meeting dates.
2. We set a field prep date.
3. We set a field marking date.
4. We set coaching class dates!
5. (Referees were already handled...)
6. We set a field lottery date.
7. We set a date to FORM TEAMS!
8. We set a date to get the game schedule out.
9. We set Coaches meeting dates.

We got more done in two weeks than what got done in the last four months!

EXTRA program?

We just had a meeting on the EXTRA program.

The thought is the we are losing AYSO players to club; and that is bad.
I think it is bad that club as watered down their programs so much that their entry level teams are in reality on par with AYSO teams.  The other thought was that we establish an Academy Training program that is outside of AYSO and club, and players play in the EXTRA team depending on skill and training.

I am opposed to having the Extra play at the same time as our regular season; I feel that players will abandon their "regular" team whenever there is a training or game conflict with the Extra program, which isn't fair to their teammates.  Right now it looks like the plan is to play in Extra during the spring, where it will be an elite level above recreational and select.

I suggested that we stay inside AYSO's national program, for insurance and other liablility protection.

More to follow...

2011 is on the way!

Here we are, on the cusp of the 2011 season. A perennial problem for most regions is Referee retention.  One of the major factors (cited in various publications and verified by our own experience) in losing referees is having to deal with abusive parents and coaches. It doesn't help that we take our brand new, inexperienced referees and throw them into the U10 division - which is both our largest divisions and the first competitive one for many parents, and they really don't know how to behave properly!

One of the ways to combat abusive people is to make sure the referee is confident in their skills; another is make sure that they have a place to go with concerns and questions.

I called this"putting a face on the referee program"; since most of the referees get nine hours of face time with the instructional staff and then we push them out the door.

At the U10 field we put up a pop-up tent, tried to staff it up for the day, and passed out a flyer with some sort of training point.  It also was a place for them to put down their referee bag and hang out with their peers and staff.

I think it was fairly successful, and I am hoping that we have planted the seed for retention.

Another season down the drain (figuratively speaking)

Well, here we go with another season just about under our belt.

I wonder if other Regions are as confused as our is?

Let's see, so for just U7 alone various SNAFUs we dealt with included:

    One day the RC decided not to bother opening up the bin so we could get out little things, such as the GOALS.

    The RCA decided not to have any meetings with the non-competitive coaches; thus nobody knew how to setup fields, practice times, game length.

    The Schedule changed day to day, with three different versions floating around at any given time.

    We didn't get enough medals for the members of our team.

    There was a "phantom" team that was on the schedule, but never seemed to show up…so someone was always missing an opponent.

That's enough for one day…

Gearing up for the new season

It is time to get ready for September.
As such, I am soliciting input to help develop some standardized pre-game instructions for the coaches, players, and assistant referees.  This should help us present a unified front as a Region and (hopefully) make the games run a little more smoothly.

Germany out of the World Cup Final?!

Well well well.
Having lived in Germany for several years in my younger days, I was hopeful that they would make it to the finals.  I guess Mueller shouldn't have gotten that yellow card - better luck next time.

Go Holland!

Non-competitive divisions - to foul or not to foul

Currently in our Region, the non-competitive divisions don't allow "fouls."
We look at refereeing as a teaching moment, and restart with a dropped ball.
If the behaviour continues too much, we may indeed allow a free kick - but always indirect.

Now, the question is:  Should we continue this at all non-competitive levels (U5-U8)?  After U8 comes U10, where the kids now are expected to follow all the FIFA rules (except for field size, # of players, etc).  Fouls and misconduct exists, as to direct and indirect kicks.  Are we doing our players a disservice by dumping them into this situation after "playing nice" for so long?

Life goes on.

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything. In the off season, so very long ago now, my oldest son died. Since then, it has been somewhat of a struggle to even carry on, let alone enter things into a blog. But.. life goes on. I have a daughter who is going into U14 this year, and another son who is excited about U7 - and I've coached him for the last two seasons.

Yes, life goes on. I became an Advanced Referee, started teaching referee classes, was the Assistant Regional Commissioner, and now I am the Director of Instruction. How did this happen when I wasn't even looking? When I just want to crawl under a rock until the sun happened to start shining again? Life goes on...sometimes kicking and screaming, we have to do our best. And in doing our best, sometimes the best takes over without us even knowing why.

A moment of silence, then life, indeed, will go on.

To ref or not to ref

Had to send a coach off last weekend; it was a sobering experience.
I'll post details later, but what I came away with was an overwhelming urge to drop out of the referee program!

Teamwork

Ah, what utter heartbreak. We played against one of our former players on Saturday...so she knew all of our secrets! (Rule 1: have fun. Rule 2: Make lots of goals)

All eight of our girls showed up (maybe the 2nd time this season!) so I had to to have one "rest" for each quarter. One little girl wasn't feeling well, so she waited out 2 periods until her Mom came with some Del Taco food (low blood suger, I suppose...). Then my daughter sat one out. Then I was out of tricks; no volunteers....so it was the dreaded eeny-meeny-miney-moe, and one of our really outstanding girls was Moe.

Fair being fair, she sat out. All the little ones where aghast (since she is one of the more active ones), but it will probably be a good lesson in the long run. We'll have to have a long talk at practice about teamwork; I was a bit disappointed that no-one volunteered to sit out. Instant gratification and all that...

Position, Position

Well, the girls are coming right along. Ali is a wild-woman, running all over the field, absolutely fearless. Katie, I think, has finally gotten the point about being a forward, and actually waited somewhere past the mid-field mark!

More common, are my defenders. Somehow they managed to get the impression that they need to stand at the outside corner of the penalty box. So, when the ball whooshed past them, they would poke their toe at it and watch it bounce towards the goal. Sometimes the goal keeper would grab it, but then again, sometimes they forgot that they could pick up the ball as keeper!

The team that played after us was unprepared; they asked if we would be the ref!

The name's the game...

Well, the Coral Sea Stars it is! And it won on the first ballot; which was a bit unexpected - especially when you consider that some of the teams in U12 still haven't finalized. [FYI, my son's team is officially the Flame Throwers!]

My daughter has played two games so far. The first game was forgettable: nobody played to their position, nobody remembered how to throw in the ball...the only bright spot was our goalkeeper. She is fearless! She got stomped on by a bigger girl, but wouldn't come out of the game. Then, she took out another opponent who "forgot" that you can't run into the keeper.

This week's game was much better. We had about 80% coverage. Of course, Gwendolyn (my little one) stood on the corner of the penalty area for most of the game, but did get a few kicks in. The high point of the game was probably when Trevor (who is almost 2!) threw some of the green slimy Goldfish (tm) in my hair at halftime.

Coral Sea Stars. Is that a soccer team or a fish?

So, after scrambling around I managed to get my parent's to fill out the volunteer forms, and we got the uniforms! I think they are orange, but my wife insists that they are "coral." So my daughter spent all day listing possible team names (coaches perogative - I get to "suggest" the first team name).

Her first choice is the "Coral Sea Stars", which I think is sort of clever for a 7-year old.
After that, it's "Beautiful Sunrise" - try to put *that* on a banner!

Until next time...

To ref, or not to ref continued

I almost forgot! After taking the intermediate class, and reffing some all star games, I finally got the referee administrator to sign off on my form! One more signature, and I'll be official!

It will probably take two more years to get the next 25 games under my belt to go for advanced...but I may be able to do some U14 or U16 games this year. Should be kind of interesting!

Another new year begins

Well...last night was the referee's meeting. Same old stuff, but there was one interesting rule change: during the throw in, the defender has to remain two meters away. I managed to schedule all the games I'm going to ref as well; since my son is now in U12, I snagged all the games immediately after his (on the same field, no less!). Of course, that meant I had to check against my daughter's games (U8, you know) -- there looks like only two conficts!

So, I'll have to swoop over to the little one's field, while my wife cheers on my son. Ah, what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to, er, play soccer.