Saturday was our team's last game together. We have known all season long that we would be losing D and C because they had to go to the next age group. The way the teams are divided up after evaluations is as follows: All the coaches watch and rate all the kids on a 1-5 scale, 5 is rock your socks good. Then we go in, usually keep the core of our teams together and add the new kids in around them so that at the end of it all, total team valuations are roughly the same. When we formed teams for the last season I think we all came up with an average score of 28 - my team was NOT the highest. My returning player ratings are one 5, one 4, three 3's, one 2, and a -.5.
Well, with our record I knew I wasn't going to get any experienced players in so I told the director that he could keep my 7 returning players together and give me 4 or 5 ones - completely inexperienced players for me to blood.
Unfortunately he has other ideas. He announced that I'll get to keep Lil Lookout and have 8 or 9 players, some new, some experienced, but all new to my team. He wants to split all the teams up so that they can experience new coaches, yadayadayada. He gave me the pat on the back and told me I'd done too good of a job. He wants parity in the league. He wants inexperienced coaches getting the chance to work with "top notch" players. Never mind that other coaches in the league have had their chance with all but my two most inexperienced players. The one session I took off Lil Lookout played for another coach and only scored 3 or 4 times. Don't tell me it's because of the quality of the players, it is about what you tell the kids to do on the field.
Basically he doesn't want to hear shit about my "stacked" team anymore.
In coaching theory that sounds great. In reality, from a business standpoint you had better think about customer satisfaction and whether you are going to piss off parents. I have a very satisfied group of parents who have all become good friends outside of the complex. They get their kids together to play, they go to dinner... These parents like me as a coach, sure, but just as important they like the people they sit with for a few hours each week. They like being able to trust eachother with carpooling kids around. I'm not unique, other coaches have developed the same situations regardless of their win/loss record. I told him that there would be hell to pay if he dropped this news on the parents. His response was that I should warn them about it before evaluations then. So I did. After our last game and an hour before our end of season pizza party.
By the time I arrived at the pizza party they had already planned and organized their revolt. They are passing a petition to parents from all the teams threatening to yank their kids from the complex if this plan is put into action.
No matter what happens, someone is going to be upset this week. Most importantly a program that a few of us have pulled together with our blood, sweat, tears (and more than just a little seed money) could collapse over "sound coaching theory".
The director is a good friend of mine who used this same system in another state before we hired him last year. It still really hasn't sunk in for him that this isn't just a building, some kids, and a field... it is a close knit community that has formed and evolved around a silly little ball. Communities are hard to form and easy to destroy and I am not looking forward to this week.