All the players, new and old, are put through the same drill(s).CHAPTER
17
Balancing the talent among the teams in the league is critical. When all is said and done, this aspect of league organization is both the most important and the most difficult to achieve. Often, the person who does the organizing is also a coach. He or she may feel that getting the pick of the talent is the reward for doing all the organizational work. It’s no surprise then when they win more than their share of the games. I’ve witnessed cases where the league organizer won every game. It was obvious that the talent wasn’t spread around.
So what method is fair? The “sandlot method” is the best method going for balancing the talent. It is a fair draft system.
One year, my neighbor Gene and I decided to cocoachS a girls’ softball team. Each team was to carry 15 girls. The league had carry-over teams that included players from the past season. The team had a maximum of eight “carry-overs.” Tryouts were held for all the new girls. Apple Valley, Minnesota, was growing fast then, so there was a lot of new talent. Each girl was to hit, run the bases, catch and throw. A league organizer pitched to all of the girls for consistency.
At the tryouts, Gene and I sat on separate benches and separately rated and ranked all the new girls with a method we had worked out ahead of time, using a scale of 1 to 10. A draft was then held to fill each team with 15 girls. Since we were a brand new team, we were given eight draft picks to fill our team to the “base of eight.” Thus, we and the other new team had the opportunity to pick the best 16 players – eight each – in turn. Then all teams joined the draft according to the number of carryovers each had.
The other coaches seemed more interested in drafting who their daughter wanted on the team or who lived in their neighborhood. They didn’t use a ranking method. We therefore drafted not just eight but 13 of the most talented girls for our team. Since our own daughters were among the best in the league, we had a very powerful team. These two years were the only back-to-back undefeated seasons in my coaching career. We had lots of fun, but the other teams didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as we did.
Is it OK to have such lopsided results? Was that the best thing for the girls on all of the teams? The other coaches were certainly unhappy with our dominance. What went wrong here? The talent was nowhere near balanced.
In my opinion, coaches should have their own kid(s) on their teams. After that, what do we do? Organize by neighborhood and hope that the talent is randomly distributed? If the neighborhoods have about the same player population, this might work. If schools are running the show, the talent will be distributed according to school size. If the schools in the league are about the same size, the talent will be fairly evenly distributed. If they aren’t, the biggest school will probably dominate.
But what method is best for an association? I think it’s the universal tryout method, much like we used on the sandlot. This method, with a tryout, ranking, and draft, goes something like this:
All the players, new and old, are put through the same drill(s).
Two or more league officers/ coaches grade every player, whether they are on an existing team or not. The same method is used by all.
The ranking is summarized by one method – say a 1-to-10 score for each drill – then totaled. If three drills are used along with the 1-to10 method, a perfect score is 30.
Coaches are given a list ranking all of the players.
Then the draft is conducted according to the ranking of the players. That is, any team that doesn’t already have a top-ranked player drafts one. Then the remaining top-ranked and number two-ranked players are drafted with all teams participating.
Each coach might be given one “personal draft” to get their kid’s best friend on the team. This is a difficult issue, as the best friends may be of significantly different rank. If this is done, attention to the rank might cause an adjustment in draft order.
The same method could be used with league officials assigning the players to teams based only on rank. Even then, coaches should coach their own kids.
Of course this takes considerable planning for a one-time event. Even with the associated problems (kids who can’t make the tryout, deciding which coaches rank the players, etc.), this is a very good method. Some equitable method must be found because balancing the talent is the second giant step toward parity.