BEHIND THE PLAY #52

Here in Metro Vancouver we are heading into what is known as Evaluation season. That is a misnomer for most clubs now but the reputation persists. Regardless, as someone who ran Evaluations for 15 years at a large club as Technical Director I’d like to share ten things that the mythical Perfect FC I’ve used for the past two newsletters, should be doing to ensure Evaluations are fair, transparent and effective. I am very comfortable saying that we pioneered in season, season-long evaluations and that we’ve happily shared aspects of what we do with many clubs. None of us are Perfect FC yet though so your feedback and ideas on this and other aspects of running a club are welcome. That goes for parents, players, club officials and club technical staff. Email me (just hit reply to this email) or complete a simple form here if you prefer to remain anonymous. I’ll answer one such submission below.

Ten things Perfect FC would do at their player evaluations

1. When the season starts, equip your coaches, whether they are staff coaches or parent coaches, with the tools they need to provide effective in-season feedback sessions with their players and a schedule for when those should be done. We worked with Supporting Lines to develop these and then instructed all coaches to do two 5-10 minute sessions with each player with at least one of their parents in attendance.

2. Define staff roles for every aspect of your Evaluations process. For larger clubs your TD should not be evaluating players. They should be managing the whole process and if you have a proper process it will truly require an experienced person who can handle the administrative component in addition to excellent communication skills. Staff coaches and administrators should be given written descriptions they will be required to do.

3. Front load info so parents and players are clear on what the process will look like, who is accountable for each aspect and if you do this early enough you can tell them to temper their expectations based on the information they are receiving. Ideally, if done right, there should be no one who has actively engaged in the process surprised by where they or their child has been placed for the following season. We do this through online parent information meetings that are tailored to whether they are new to the process or not. We also run refresher meetings for our team officials (coaches and managers) on what they should expect.

4. Get data from multiple sources on each player and don’t fear differing opinions in that data. We ask for weekly scoring from our coaches on all our divisional teams. The questions are both quantitative (a form of ranking) and qualitative (attendance, attitude). We also have staff coaches provide scoring on our teams at games. We call this Phase 1 of our Evaluations. At the end of the season we ask the coaches to fill out one last, more comprehensive, survey on the players (Phase 2). We then head into what is colloquially called “the tryouts” but we call it Phase 3. These are the end of season, on-field evaluation sessions that, frustratingly, many parents and thus players see as the most important and/or only phase of the process that matters. The reality is that with a full season worth of data already this is really more an opportunity for us to see the players from other clubs who have signed up to be considered for our club and also to get a sense of the overall depth of the player pool in an age group so we can ascertain how many teams to enter in each division.

   Our last component is the team formation meeting that follows on the heels of the last on-field session for the players. This sees the TD lead the coaches of the teams being formed through all the data from Phase 1 (in-season scoring), Phase 2 (comprehensive team coach survey of the players) and Phase 3 (end of season on-field sessions scores). Every player who registered, even if they didn’t show up for Phase 3, is considered by all in attendance at the team formation meeting which we refer to as Phase 4. A roster is picked along with usually two alternates in case someone turns a spot down.

   It’s a lot of data for the TD, and in some cases, the Assistant TD to manage. The fact that they don’t score gives them the necessary credibility to lead the process and finalize rosters. They are very likely familiar with the players and can jump in if they feel there’s nepotism at the team formation meeting (ie. a coach who has an opinion one way or the other that is totally contrary to what all the scores for a player say). For this reason ensure your policies clearly state the TD has final say on team rosters.

5. Regarding Evaluation Policies, cover all bases. Be explicit. Think of extenuating circumstances and make sure you have wording applicable to them. Our Evaluations Policies are updated annually. We de-brief a week or two after we are finished each year and bring notes to a meeting to see what we should consider adding or changing for the following year. Updates are made, presented to our Board for edits/approval and then we make it public on our website. The current document is 21 pages.

6. If you don’t have full time admin staff, hire someone specifically for the task of administering your Evaluations. The amount of comms, details, last minute schedule changes, etc would shock the average person. We have about 1400 players go through our Phase 3 sessions. They all need to know about our parent info meetings, how to register, communications around where and when they have to be. They need to schedule staff to sign players in at Phase 3, know how the score collection and collation system works (with what are sometimes ridiculously tight turnaround times) and ensure we have an effective plan to let players know if they have or have not been selected for the team they are hoping to be on and what the next steps are based on that info. Administrators with great attention to detail, personal organization skills and discipline along with a strong personality to ensure all other staff are on point during the process are truly difficult to find. If you’ve got one, hold on to them.

7. TD’s should have a list of to-do’s once you hit Phase 3. Parents often complain that these on-field sessions are a scam and that we’ve already made up our mind who’s going to be on the team. We try to explain that us knowing, at this stage, who should be on the team is a sign that (a) we have an excellent process and (b) we are following that process. Yes, for us, by the time we get to those sessions we probably know about 80% of the roster. What’s left to decide are how the players from other clubs that we haven’t seen before fit into the mix and where the ‘bubble’ players will end up. Bubble players, if you’re not familiar with the concept are the ones who are close but could go either way.

8. Record your team formation meetings. We started doing these online during COVID and realized it was advantageous in a few ways. It conveys accountability and transparency in the process. If there was a disagreement over something that had been said during the meeting, we have a record of it we can refer to. If a parent or someone else complained about the process we, again, have a record of it. We keep the recordings of all the team formation meetings for a year. It both protects those involved in the meetings, ensures they maintain a high degree of professionalism and decorum as well as staying true to the process that is supposed to be followed.

9. Provide clear directions to players selected and those who are not. We ask selected players to confirm their spot within 48 hours and then register within another 24 hours. Letting it go on and on for a lengthy time is problematic in terms of establishing team viability and completeness as well as for players who were ‘alternates’ who shouldn’t need to wait a month to be added (making it clear to the rest of the team they were not picked initially). For those not selected, tell them if they need to attend another round of Phase 3 on-field sessions for a lower tier of play or if you have enough info to comfortably place them on a team at that level with no further sessions needed. Make sure all players offered spots know how to register, how much they need to pay, what payment options you have (credit card? debit? cheque?), what payment plans you can provide and how your financial assistance works for those in need.

10. Every year now we get more players who come to us once our process is complete and teams have been selected and communicated. It used to mainly be players who moved to Vancouver over the summer but now it’s more players who have either changed their mind about an offer they accepted at another club or players who are still ‘club-shopping’ and may be prepared to ditch the club they committed to and join you. There is a prevailing ‘wisdom’ among parents recently that your main allegiance in youth sports is to your kid and if that means accepting a spot and then walking away for something you feel is better for your child…that’s just being a good parent. The validity of this belief, compared to modelling following through on a commitment you’ve made, is clearly subjective but from a club point of view, it can sometimes prove incredibly disruptive to the club and unfair to other players on the team the player is leaving. It’s the main reasons so many clubs tightened up refund policies to cut down on those with a highly mobile disposition when it comes to their kids’ sports.

Summary: I clearly can’t speak for how other clubs handle evaluations, the efficacy of their processes nor the fairness of the selections. I can say it is obviously not in the interest of any club to deliberately not select a player who should clearly be playing at the level they’re selecting for. Yet it’s a strong myth that clubs play favourites, that they make grievious errors in player selection due to incompetence or they don’t pick players because the parents are a problem they don’t want to continue dealing with.

Do personalities factor into decisions? If they’re parent personalities they definitely should not. We have a long uttered sentiment on that. “We do not blame kids for their parents behaviour.” If it’s the player that has the difficult personality? That is something that should be handled at the two feedback sessions. Parent coaches are encouraged to have one of our staff attend if they feel they have a difficult situation in those sessions that needs to be addressed. Generally, that would be a bullying issue or a player who is regularly being a distraction at training sessions. Communicate these issues early so there are no surprises. Hold players to your club’s Player Code of Conduct. Yes, there are reasons why a player who is technically talented should not be selected but you owe them that discussion well ahead of team selections. As said at the top, an excellent process should leave no player surprised with the level of play they are offered by a club.

Submitted question

Q: Not a suggestion just a comment or thought - as I was reading this email I was just thinking about something that happens in BC that I don’t know if it happens as regularly in any other province, winter soccer. Having spoken to parents of young kids in Alberta so many of them talk about Soccer being the “summer sport” and hockey or gym sport being the winter sport. It’s just interesting coming from a province where soccer is available pretty much year round to somewhere where the “typical” path appears to be having different summer and winter sports. I am not a parent so I have not experienced any of this first hand and these are my observations so I’ll be curious one day when I get to that stage in life what the things are that I’ll notice.

A: To my knowledge, the Lower Mainland (aka Metro Vancouver) and Vancouver Island are the only parts of Canada that play a September to March/April main season. That is buttressed with a separate, shorter season in the spring that has a lot fewer players participating.

Clearly, this is primarily a function of weather. Other parts of Canada have adapted though and run indoor programming once their March/April to October/November seasons wrap up. We, in Metro Vancouver, would have a real challenge changing our main season to what the rest of Canada plays though and that’s down to the nature of field permits. Increasingly field permits are like gold. As soccer is seen as a September to March season, our ‘historical permits’ (once that are automatically ours each year unless we choose not to renew them) are for that time of year. Other sports, like baseball, have permits in the spring and summer with grass fields given regular breaks from permit use to recover. Artificial turf field permits were given on the same basis but soccer was able to get more spring times as they don’t work for sports like baseball and rugby. That said there’s just not nearly enough time on turf fields to satiate demand. Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and parts of northern BC have adapted and built indoor facilities so they can play year round. It’s the main reason the other provinces all caught up and passed BC in terms of placing players on national teams. They can, in at least some areas, now play year round as we do in the Lower Mainland.

The end

Lastly, a reminder that Lamine Yamal is still just 17 years old but regularly does stuff like this.