Dealing with Tryouts

As the parent of a sports family, I don’t know of any greater stress in our house, then waiting to find out if our player made the team. For premiere athletes, tryouts are a common occurrence and you kind of get use to the routine. What to wear. Who will be trying out. Who will be coaching and putting on the drills. What parent will be sucking up to the coach to get their little star a little extra attention. Did the coach notice your mistakes. Did the coach say anything to you. Dealing with rejection. Dealing with the best friend who didn’t make it. Here are a couple thoughts, suggestions and comments from experience.
It’s ok to ask questions about the upcoming tryout. Will it be an “open tryout”. That would be defined as we are going to tryout everyone and regardless if your player was on the team last year, started last year, scored 10 goals last year, knows the coach or any other so called “advantages” a player might have. The coach conducting the tryout has an obligation to the team to bring on the best 18 players available who try out.
A “limited” tryout is defined as an existing team that has 4 spots or 2 spots that it would like to fill to complete the squad. It’s important to be fair in communicating this to the kids and to the parents. You might have 30 kids show up to tryout for 2 spots. It could be very possible that 5-6 of the kids trying out are better than players that are already on the team. Stick to the plan in place and that was communicated to the parents.
Parents who suck up to the coach and leverage their relationship with their kids have a very low place in my book. A coach that conducts a tryout and allows this type of politicking and favoritism to occur should be thrown out of the club or removed from their position. There is no room for favoritism at a premiere level, ODP or any other regional or national club level. I have been very impressed with groups of qualified coaches from other teams within a club or organization conducting tryouts.
Many tryouts charge a small fee and give away t-shirts. Great idea and it puts every kid in the same uniform for the tryout. No club insignia or “colors”. More importantly for everyone involved. Give the kids a number for tryouts and to post cuts. Its very embarrassing to see a players name posted on a board that they got cut and or who got called back for another look.
As a parent, I would suggest not attending the tryout. Yep, that’s’ right. You distract your player and to make things worse, you might even try to give them advice or coach them. Go get a cup of coffee and come back in an hour. If your player does not make the team, don’t freak out and punish the coach. I’ve asked the coaches for written evaluations on areas of improvement and found most of them to be very accommodating.
Support your players efforts and be positive. Nothing worse in the world than the parent cussing the coach and the other players that made the team. How is your player going to survive in the big working world someday with out you there to fight their battles. Are you going to go yell at an employer because your kid didn’t get the job. Time to let your player fly on their own. It has taken a lot of effort in my house to avoid being critical in the earshot of my kids, but my wife and I hold our comments to private conversations.
I don’t even want to discuss in this column the difficulties my players have had at the middle school and high school level with incompetent coaches that have been put into these positions because they are a teacher or have tenure. Well, I can’t hold back on this short story. My middle school ODP player, has a coach that has never played or coached soccer. I am not even sure she has a USYSA coaching license. The principal and the athletic director are scared of her. She is very close to qualifying for “hazing” my player.
The most recent 1-11 season speaks volumes, but next year, my daughter has decided to run cross country instead of play her last year of middle school. For premiere and ODP level players, there is no greater travesty than investing 250 hours of “practice” time to learn nothing or worse, pick up bad habits from bad advice. Semi private (4-6 players) “training” can cost $25-$50 dollars per hour. That would be an investment of over $6,000 dollars in training fees for equivalent outside training. As I’ve spoken in previous columns, there are a ton of qualified and licensed coaches out there who would love to pick up a team for the small stipend a school team plays. There is something to be said for public schools that have pay to play. Now you have an opinion on who coaches.
In my athletic career and in discussion with my wife’s’ experiences, we made teams on our own merits. No politics, no butt kissing, no whinnying. If we didn’t make it, then we had to work harder. I would highly recommend Michael Jordan’s book. He never had anything given to him but possessed the “fury” inside to be a competitor and be a winner.
There are several other great publications out on this topic for soccer. I particularly like Anson Durance’s’ book “The Vision of a Champion”.
I am blessed with a daughter who has a burning drive, desire, passion, fury and sometimes rage to compete and win. It comes from deep down and self driven. Its not from her parents. Its not artificial. Not only the opinion of a proud father, but of the many trainers and coaches that have touched her career. She is only 12 but has set very high goals for herself and works diligently to pursue her dreams. She has been on the state ODP team since she was 10. As a parent, I get very upset when I see politics or an un-educated opinion play a role in determining a players placement and position on a team.
Support, encourage, praise and help your kid to be a better player and teammate. Give them a little room to watch them be great.