This is one of the reasons LL requires that a commissioner for a division NOT coach or have a DD in that division. It is a change you should seriously consider next season.
Obvious mistakes I see -
The commissioner role is above your coach role. It is not equal. As commissioner you have a duty to ALL the girls in the division. By saying it is equal you have created an environment which openly favors your team.
As commissioner you didn't follow or join in the league All Star process all the other teams did. That legitimately looks awful. I wouldn't be happy either if I was another coach/parent. As commissioner you can't do this, especially since you had the opportunity to change it (which you didn't) and then you decided to do something different entirely with your group of players. Part of being commissioner for a division is to make sure the league goals are met - and all-stars were clearly part of it. Basically you said "I messed up, but I can fix it for my team. All the other players and coaches can deal with it"
Your league's team selection process is set up for rampant team stacking. Of course your team was stacked intentionally - it may not have been you who set it up this way - but just by the nature of the selection process someone has clearly done so and you were happy to take advantage of it. I'd be stunned if there isn't a couple of teams in every division who are full of newbies with a newbie coach who get their butts kicked weekly (except when they played each other - which will be used by other coaches to justify this "Oh, isn't it nice one of these teams are going to get a win. Hahaha..."). If there is - your league is failing every single girl on those teams.
As commissioner you can't say 'Oh it benefited me but what was I to do'. That sounds like BS because it basically is.
You can't have even teams, but you have to have 'fair' teams.
This may be harsh... but I have been there, and ran a large softball league for quite a few years before I burnt out of it. I didn't delegate a whole lot (except in the division where my DD was playing) and ran it pretty much as a 'benevolent dictator'. But our retention rate was close to 90% and we grew 20% in size most years.
[edit:] your email reply is a good start in fixing this
Obvious mistakes I see -
The commissioner role is above your coach role. It is not equal. As commissioner you have a duty to ALL the girls in the division. By saying it is equal you have created an environment which openly favors your team.
As commissioner you didn't follow or join in the league All Star process all the other teams did. That legitimately looks awful. I wouldn't be happy either if I was another coach/parent. As commissioner you can't do this, especially since you had the opportunity to change it (which you didn't) and then you decided to do something different entirely with your group of players. Part of being commissioner for a division is to make sure the league goals are met - and all-stars were clearly part of it. Basically you said "I messed up, but I can fix it for my team. All the other players and coaches can deal with it"
Your league's team selection process is set up for rampant team stacking. Of course your team was stacked intentionally - it may not have been you who set it up this way - but just by the nature of the selection process someone has clearly done so and you were happy to take advantage of it. I'd be stunned if there isn't a couple of teams in every division who are full of newbies with a newbie coach who get their butts kicked weekly (except when they played each other - which will be used by other coaches to justify this "Oh, isn't it nice one of these teams are going to get a win. Hahaha..."). If there is - your league is failing every single girl on those teams.
As commissioner you can't say 'Oh it benefited me but what was I to do'. That sounds like BS because it basically is.
You can't have even teams, but you have to have 'fair' teams.
This may be harsh... but I have been there, and ran a large softball league for quite a few years before I burnt out of it. I didn't delegate a whole lot (except in the division where my DD was playing) and ran it pretty much as a 'benevolent dictator'. But our retention rate was close to 90% and we grew 20% in size most years.
[edit:] your email reply is a good start in fixing this
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