AYSO Region 92 Policy for Fall Soccer Program Team Formation
AYSO Region 92 Policy for Fall Soccer Program Team Formation U10-‐U12-‐U14 Divisions
Approved by Board: 15-‐Jul-‐2013
PURPOSE: The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance for balanced team
formation to support the AYSO Balanced Teams philosophy. This policy applies to the U10, U12, and U14 divisions in the primary (Fall) season. Team formation is the responsibility of the Division Commissioner, under the supervision of the Program Commissioner and the Coach Administrator. Any player who has registered prior to the registration deadline with birth date verification and appropriate fees paid will be placed on a team for the Fall season. LIST OF PLAYERS: Following completion of registration and on the date designated by the Regional Commissioner, the Regional Registrar will provide the Coach Administrator and the respective Program Commissioner with a list of players that meet the eligibility requirements for each division. The list shall include: the player’s name, prior year’s rating, birth date, division, and registration date. WAITLIST: Players that are registered after the designated registration deadline will be placed on a waitlist with no guarantee of team placement. LATE REGISTRATION -‐ PRIOR TO TEAM FORMATION: Players on the waitlist prior to team formation may be added to the player pool for team formation, only to the point that all teams have full rosters. Players will be taken in the order they were put on the waiting list. LATE REGISTRATION -‐ AFTER TEAM FORMATION: Players on the waitlist after team formation may be added to a team in the event of a dropped player as described below (see section on Dropped or Injured Players). Players on the waitlist after team formation may be held in Applicant mode in eAYSO and are not required to pay Region fees unless they are selected to join a team. All players on the waitlist must have a current player rating. PLAYERS MOVING UP TO A HIGHER DIVISION: Requests for player’s to move-‐up will be considered in accordance with the Region’s Move-‐Up policy. Written player move-‐up requests must be received by the Regional Commissioner by June 30. Players approved to move-‐up will be added to the appropriate division player pool. Special consideration for U14 players entering High school: Review the player registration forms and identify players attending high school (ninth grade). If there are Registration forms that do not identify the school of the player’s fall attendance, the Division Commissioner will contact the player/parents/guardian to determine
Region 92 Policy for Fall Program Team Formation U10-‐U12-‐U14 Divisions
such. Regional playoffs, the League Championship and All Star tournaments may fall within the high school soccer season. A player on a High School team (including the frosh/soph team) becomes ineligible and subject to penalties under the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF). Rather than put the player in this position, AYSO Region 92 will allow the player to move up to U16 as indicted in the Regional move-‐ up policy. The Division Commissioner must contact all potential U14 players starting ninth grade in the fall and advise their parents/guardians of this option. The Division Commissioner must stress to the parent that the main reason for this exemption is to maintain a High School team player’s eligibility. The parent may wish for their child to remain in U14 if they are not likely to make a High School team. NEW PLAYER ASSESSMENT: Players entering the program without a prior year rating will require an assessment before team formation to determine his or her skill level for balanced team formation. The Coach Administrator or Program Commissioner will schedule a mandatory evaluation session and arrange for assessors to evaluate and rate players using the same rating scale as other players in the division. The new ratings will be entered into eAYSO and applied for team formation as described below. If the Region is unable to determine a player’s rating, those unrated players may be added to the player pool and sorted by birth date for rating purposes during the team formation process. The addition of unrated players to the player pool will be subject to approval of the Regional Commissioner. PLAYER POOL: The Program Commissioner will provide a list of all eligible players in the player pool for each division to the designated Division Commissioner for team assignment as outlined below. The list shall identify all players that were registered and paid by the announced registration deadline and those that registered after the registration deadline (waitlist). All players that registered prior to the deadline will be placed on a team. Players registered after the registration deadline will be placed on the waitlist and assigned to a team based on space available. The Division Commissioner will review the player pool and identify siblings. If the parents or guardians of siblings within the same division have not requested same team placement, the parents or guardians should be contacted to confirm this intent BEFORE proceeding with team formation. PLAYER ANNOTATIONS: The following players should be identified and annotated in the player pool list: • Players that were All Stars the prior season • Players that are participating on a Club team during the upcoming Fall season
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Region 92 Policy for Fall Program Team Formation U10-‐U12-‐U14 Divisions
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Players that moved-‐up a division in the prior Fall season Players that participated in the prior Spring season Child of a Head Coach Child of a prospective assistant coach (the Division commissioner should verify the prospective assistant coach has agreed to be included in the assistant coach pool) Siblings
SPECIAL REQUESTS: Further annotations may be made based on special requests
submitted by parents or guardians to the Regional Commissioner. Such special requests may be considered, but are not guaranteed, such as a parent or guardian requesting their child NOT be placed on a team with a specific coach or another specific player in the division. Personal requests for favored coaches, head and assistant coaching teams, placement to accommodate friendships or carpooling, will NOT be considered in team formation. Special request annotations should remain confidential and should not be disclosed to coaches. SORTING THE PLAYER POOL: The player pool for each division shall be divided into two groups: (1) second-‐year players, defined as players who are returning or the upper age group within the division, and (2) first-‐year players, defined as players who are in the entering or lower age group within the division, including players that have moved up from a lower division. Players that moved-‐up the prior year and are playing their second year in the division shall be considered second-‐year players since their rating was based on performance in that division last year. Each of the two age groups shall be sorted first by birth date from oldest to youngest and then in numerical rating order from 10 to 1. This sort should produce a list of second-‐year players by ratings and by birth date within each rating group, and a list of first-‐year players by ratings and birth date within each rating group. Within each ratings group: ALL-‐STARS: Move each All-‐Star to the top of the ratings group. For example, a second-‐year player who was an All-‐Star last season, with a rating of 8, would be moved to the top of the group of all second-‐year players rated 8. In the case where there are multiple players meeting these criteria, the next sort criteria shall be birth date. SPRING: Place each player who participated in the prior Spring league next under the Extra Players. BIRTHDATE: Sort the remaining players in the ratings group by birthdate (oldest to youngest). SERPINTINE TEAM ASSIGNMENT: Initial team assignments shall be made by a serpentine allocation beginning with the second-‐year players pool. The top player in the list is assigned to team #1, the second player to team #2, and so forth. Once each team has been assigned a player, the process is reversed for the next round, Page 3 of 6
Region 92 Policy for Fall Program Team Formation U10-‐U12-‐U14 Divisions
and the last team is assigned the next player and the assignments continue in reverse order back to team #1. Using this process, the team at the end of each round receives the first player at the beginning of the next round. The process continues until all players in the second-‐year player pool are assigned. The serpentine for the first-‐year players pool begins with the top player assigned to the last team, and a similar process is followed as described above, except in reverse order, until all players have been assigned. INITIAL COACH ADJUSTMENTS: Adjust rosters to separate each of the head coaches to one per team. Adjustments for the coach’s child should be with an identical rated child on the team closest to their original team in the serpentine. Retention of players on any team shall be limited to the head coach’s child(ren). Otherwise, there shall be no automatic retention of players on any specific team or with any specific coach from the previous season SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES: Any issues or players identified as possibly creating a volatile situation through team assignment should be brought to the attention of the Program Commissioner. Special requests, as outlined above, may also be considered; these issues and requests will be considered on a case-‐by-‐case basis by the Division Commissioner and Program Commissioner, and then approved by the Regional Commissioner. Any adjustments deemed warranted should be done with players of equal rating on the team closest to that team in the serpentine placement. Confirm players with special notations are evenly distributed, such as prior season All Stars, Extra players, club players, players who participated in Spring play, assistant coaches, and so forth. The intent for evenly distributing Club and Extra players is to avoid having too many players on one team that may be affected by conflicting schedules. Any switches should be done with players of equal rating on the team closest to that team in the serpentine placement COACH REVIEW: Once initial balanced teams have been formed and all adjustments have been made, as noted above, a coaches meeting shall be convened and the head coaches shall be presented with the prospective rosters. The rosters shall include the player’s name, prior season rating, identification of coaches’ children, prospective assistant coaches’ children, All Stars, club, and Spring players. The coaches shall review the rosters and recommend any changes that may improve the balance of the teams or to eliminate conflicts, including adjustments for elements such as distribution of goalkeepers or referees among the teams. The Division Commissioner and Program Commissioner may consider the recommendations from the coaches and make the final decision on any adjustments.
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Region 92 Policy for Fall Program Team Formation U10-‐U12-‐U14 Divisions
Special requests from parents shall remain confidential between the Division Commissioner and the Program Commissioner, as these requests may concern coaches in the division. If all coaches and the Division Commissioner agree that the teams are fair and balanced, then the Division Commissioner may proceed to the FINAL TEAM FORMATION step described below. If any of the coaches or Division Commissioner object to the team formation and no other adjustments can be made to resolve the discrepancy in a satisfactory manor, then at the discretion of the Division Commissioner, the teams shall be distributed according to the RANDOM DRAW process described below. RANDOM DRAW: Once the coaches’ recommendations have been considered and final adjustments have been made, each team shall be assigned a number and a random draw shall be performed, assigning each team to a head coach. The final adjustment shall be made to place the coach’s child on his or her team, by switching with another player of equal rating on the team closest to that team in the serpentine placement. FINAL TEAM FORMATION: Once the coaches and Division Commissioner have agreed to balanced teams, the coaches may be dismissed from the team formation meeting. The Division Commissioner, with approval by the Program Commissioner and the Regional Commissioner, shall make any final adjustments based on written requests from parents that have indicated they do not want their child placed with a specific coach or other child. Such changes shall remain confidential to protect the privacy of the parent or player making the request. Final team rosters shall be reported by the Division Commissioner to the Registrar or designee for team formation in eAYSO. The Registrar will distribute the registration forms to the respective Division Commissioners who, in turn, shall forward them on to the coaches. The team rosters shall be made available for reference to all coaches in the division (not including player ratings). No subsequent trading of players will be allowed after teams are distributed. DROPPED OR INJURED PLAYERS: Players that are dropped before the fifth week of the season may be replaced with a player from the waitlist. The waitlist player must have the same rating as the player that was dropped – if there is more than one player with the same rating, the player that was placed on the waitlist first (registered closest to the registration deadline) shall have the first opportunity to join the team. If there are no waitlist players that have the same rating, a player plus or minus one rating point may be considered. Replacement of any dropped players is the responsibility of the Division Commissioner. Coaches may not select the replacement players.
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Region 92 Policy for Fall Program Team Formation U10-‐U12-‐U14 Divisions
Players that are injured may be dropped with parent or guardian approval and replaced with a waitlisted player using the procedures described above. Injured players that are replaced by a waitlist player may not rejoin the team. REGIONAL COMMISSIONER APPROVAL: Any deviations from this policy require written approval from the Regional Commissioner.
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