Greater Cleveland Soccer Association

General League Information and Guidelines for Age Group Coordinators to Form Recreational League Teams

The Greater Cleveland Soccer Association strives to provide quality soccer instruction to children while fostering a spirit of teamwork and fair play. The association is managed by a soccer board which is made up of approximately 15 volunteers. These people willingly give their time to ensure that kids in the area have a place to play both recreational and competitive soccer. All soccer board decisions are made through a majority vote system, thus, no one individual makes policy changes. The recreational portion of the league serves as a developmental program for players, coaches, and referees. If you remain within the association for several years your child will be exposed to several different coaching styles. Some of our coaches have little to no playing experience but work well with children and have gained a good knowledge of the game through various training and coaches clinics offered by the association. Other coaches have played extensively and coach from that experience. What is important is not which of these styles or coaches is better, but that each coach has something different to offer your child. Being exposed to different styles of coaching is looked upon as an asset to the league, not as something to be avoided. Parents and players will find that after several seasons in this system, the players will not only meet new teammates and be reunited with familiar faces, but will also be playing against former teammates. We hope this will help the children to appreciate the value of sportsmanship. The soccer league also has teams in which the coach can select a group of players and progress with them through their development each year. These are called select teams. The philosophies at work within a select league are very different from those operating within a recreational league. If you are interested in our select program you should contact someone on the board for more information. Board members are listed on this website on the contacts page. The basic policy regarding the formation of teams in the recreational league has not changed over the years, nor is it changing now. Rather, it has been explained to each new age group coordinator and coach over the years. Recently there has been a misunderstanding of our policy and we are correcting that misunderstanding via this document.

The following guidelines have been developed to ensure that all children within the association have an equal opportunity to benefit from a diversity of coaching styles and to ensure that the talent is spread equitably among the recreational teams. Prior to the fall season each year, the registrar will provide age group coordinators with a packet containing all the player forms for children that have registered to play within their age group. Age group coordinators shall separate the player forms into groups based upon the following information: 1]Player ratings from the previous season. 2]Personal knowledge of a child’s talent level. 3]Years of playing experience shown on the player form. 4]Based upon the number of children in each age group, the coordinator shall determine the number of teams to be formed for that season. (Note: whenever feasible, we strive for an even number of teams to avoid the need for bye’s in the game schedule). Coordinators then proceed to form each team by equally distributing the talent among them. A fair and unbiased way to achieve this is to make individual decks of each talent level and then “deal” those players to each team similar to dealing a deck of cards. Where possible, an attempt to balance the distribution of girls and boys equitably among the teams will be considered as well. For any given team, coordinators shall ensure that the coach’s child and assistant coach’s child is placed with their parent. No other team placements are guaranteed! Parental requests to have children play for a specific coach, practice on a specific night, or to play on the same team as a friend for carpooling reasons, etc. may begin with good and logical intent, but have often resulted in several teams being overly stacked with talent for consecutive years. This demoralizes players on teams that are weaker and does not foster the fair play attitude that is important to the league. We shall certainly try and accommodate player/parent needs (such as only being able to practice on a given night), but those considerations must not result in talent stacking on a team. The process for splitting teams in the spring season is the same as above with the exception that the foundation of each team from the fall season will be kept intact. This allows returning players and coaches to play two seasons (fall and spring) together before being reshuffled into different teams. These guidelines are used to benefit all of our recreational players and to ensure that all players have an enjoyable experience.

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