So tell me if this is normal practice or if this club is just disorganized.
Soccer sign ups started in January. Early registration ended Feb 14 and registration is still open. Practice was supposed to start this week, but has been delayed until the week of the 25th because they don't have enough coaches. I signed my son up in January and even before early registration was over, the club was sending out emails about how they need coaches. A week after early registration ended, the need for coaches was "desperate." After jersey fitting night (three weeks ago), where my son received his jersey, they sent out a list with the number of teams and the number of coaches still needed. There are 37 teams and they still need 22 coaches! In my son's age division (the youngest), there are 8 teams and only 2 coaches.
The email I got today said my son is assigned to a team without a coach and if someone doesn't volunteer, they will refund the registration fee. I'm pretty ticked because we signed up early, my son has already got his jersey, and we bought his other needed equipment. Add that to the fact that they are still allowing players to register online! Pretty much all of the other soccer clubs in the area have closed their registration, so unless a coach pops up we are out of luck. I am not able to coach because my work schedule and practice and game times are too close together to make it work as someone who would need to be there early. Plus we will be out of town one of the weeks that a game is scheduled and I know pretty much nothing about soccer. I would have thought that they would have limited registration to a certain number of players based on the coaches they had lined up, but this has not been the case. Is this common for clubs not to have coaches lined up in advance or limit registration? We've already paid the fee, so I hope it works out, but if this is how it will be next year, I think we'll pass on this club!
Apparently their email worked, because now they have enough coaches and teams have been assigned. I am wondering if they were requiring two coaches per team, since my son's team has two listed. Anyways, I would have expected sign ups to be like Katie mentioned. I am very Type A, so this sort of thing drives me crazy!
It's not uncommon. When my daughter played rec we had this happen to us on two different teams, both times a parent stepped up to coach. They keep taking registrations because they hope one of those people might be willing to volunteer to coach. They are volunteers, and as other moms mentioned, often the parents are awful. If you truly want a coach you can hold accountable you need a paid coach, look into academy soccer.
Recreational soccer clubs are run by volunteers. The coaches are volunteers. The board is volunteers. Without volunteers you do not have a club. If nobody is willing to step up an volunteer then you will not have a club.
Typically registration is held, coaches volunteer, and then the coaches draft from the pool of kids registered. If there are not enough coaches then I am not sure how they would determine who stays and who gets refunded, but it sounds like they do not have enough volutnteers.
I don't believe they did anything wrong. If you are not happy with the format of recreational soccer than I would recommend that you look for a "cup" team where you try out, the coaches are paid, and if you make the team you pay $$$$.
The other solution would be for you to learn about soccer, free up your schedule to coach and find another willing parent to assist you to fill in your gaps. Look at it this way - your child will always have a coach ;-)
I hope everything works out.
Coaches are generally parents of the children that register. I imagine that if the club hasn't been able to get any of the parents of the children who have registered to volunteer they are hoping that the parents that are registering late may step up. Unless you are willing or able to volunteer yourself you can't really complain. Our club solved this problem by having soccer players from the university come out to coach our teams (I assume they are getting credit).
This is absolutely how it works in our area.
We got the same message sent home to us.....so my husband volunteered and made it work so that our son could play.
He went to work earlier, got home earlier, and volunteered to do the practices two days a week and games.
There were a couple of games he couldn't make because of prior commitments so he asked one of the parents on the team to step up and "coach" for the games.
You don't have to know anything about soccer, you don't have to be at every single game. If you don't volunteer and someone else doesn't volunteer than your kid wont play.
Up to you!
L.
Coaches are volunteers. I coached one year and the parents are just horrible. I worked full time and coached. Not once did anyone help me carry equipment etc. Never again. So I comment those that are willing to help out and coach. That being said I can see them not wanting to leave anyone out and are probably hoping that with registration open another coach will appear.
Sounds unorganized-our league has sign ups Nov thru Jan with practices started late Feb. Sign ups are online and automatically go to waitlist when there's not enough coaches. When another coach signs up it opens up again and keeps going like that to ensure there is a coach for each team.
ADDED: Our coaches are volunteers, too. Its not about paying coaches, its about having an organized club-they shouldn't let more kids sign up without committed coaches.
You are Type A? What they need are Type V parents. Volunteers...
think about it, maybe you or your husband can be a coaches. There are never enough coaches. We're older and our son is 40 now. It was always the same.
Same couches every year, no one wanted to HELP.
This is often how it works with recreational kids' sports. Unless parents volunteer, then the kids are screwed.
DD is doing cheer through a local organization that has paid professionals, and the classes are still affordable. I actually am not a fan of parent volunteers being coaches because they either favor their kid, or don't know anything about the actual sport they're teaching. If I'm paying 100 bucks for my kid to do an activity, I'd hope a professional coach/teacher was part of that.
My kids don't play soccer, but I've heard tons about it from a friend with a kid who plays. It sounds like this club is a disorganized mess.
I do know that there is a volunteer aspect (not just for coaching) but here it is spelled out in the registration form. You make your volunteer or buyout choice upfront before you even turn in the form.
I'm sorry you're dealing with a mess.
I think this is common. Sadly it seems that parents just aren't volunteering like they used to. Maybe because more are working longer hours. I wouldn't let being out of town for a week or two deter you from volunteering, though. (Work is another thing!) Our baseball coach will miss 6 weeks of the schedule. The parents will step in and help. Our soccer league is always begging for coaches after registration. They don't want to turn away any kids, which I appreciate. Maybe next year your league will stop registration a bit earlier!
Be grateful that your league would return your money. We signed up with a league that did the exact same thing except that our league would not refund money in any situation. We signed up with a league and paid then found out that we couldn't request that our daughter be on the same team as her friend (her friend was the ONLY reason that we were signing up). So we tried to back out, but they wouldn't give us our money back. So, we decided to go ahead and play anyway, but then they kept sending us threatening emails and phone calls saying that they needed coaches. In our case if they did not get enough coaches for our team to have one, we would still be assigned to a team and our team woudl be expected to play the games but we wouldn't be allowed to practice unless we had a coach. Ridiculous. We finally just walked away from the money and did not play soccer that season. I would recommend that in the future you check out Soccer City in Tulsa. They run a much more professional and organized league!
