Offer letters for travel team

[klborrelli42]

Does anyone have an offer letter they send out to players they are wanting to offer a spot on their team? Lastly does anyone have how long they have till offer decision needs to be made?
Thanks

 

[Orange Socks]

Never seen or heard of an "offer letter" other than a email or text. Usually it's a verbal offer. Timing: Depends on the team and coach. Most organization tryouts happen after the last Summer Nationals is played. Some coaches give 24-48 hours, some leave it open ended.

Why don't you tell us your situation so others can chime in and offer their opinions.

 

[FP26]

I no longer coach, but I will explain what our teams did.

We never used an offer letter. We did everything by phone. Once the tryouts were complete (we usually had two dates), the coaches would meet as a group and prioritize the players we wanted to add. We would call those players and offer them a spot.

The time frame is typically a product of the quality of the team and how badly you needed players... The more players a team needs the longer they are typically willing to wait for a decision. Our teams were generally pretty good and we rarely needed more than 2 or 3 players to fill our roster each year, so we typically provided one week. Once that week was up, we moved on.

I will be honest, this was one of my least favorite parts about coaching. I always felt bad for the average and below average players. Too many teams focused completely on the best players. Those players would often take more time and very carefully weigh their options before making a decision. The result is those average and below average players were stuck in limbo until the teams were ready to make their next round of calls. Often they were rating for Sally Superstar to choose her team before they would move on to that next player in line. We provided the one week time frame so that we could move on through our list more quickly. At the end of each tryout we would inform the entire group that everyone would receive a call within 2 weeks, and we made it a point to call everyone from the tryout. If the player was willing to show up at our tryout, it was my opinion that they deserved a call.

Note: We also had a pretty good relationship with some other teams in our area. Once our roster was full, we would speak with some of the other coaches. If they had openings we would reach out to some of the players that we did not select and gave them the necessary contact information. If they wanted to play softball, we did what we could to help them find a team.

 

[Coach R]

I'm kinda switching it up a bit. But what about a general email to the current team parents right before tryouts? Our tryouts are in a couple weeks and I feel like I want to throw something out there like looking forward to seeing everyone, if there thinking of going somewhere else maybe please let me know. I understand most parents won't but does anyone else do this? How do you generally word it?

 

[Lance Steckler]

we make verbal offers, and they have as long as they want to accept. BUT know that we are continuing to have tryouts, look at players and make other offers. Wait to long and the chair might be gone.

 

[FP26]

I'm kinda switching it up a bit. But what about a general email to the current team parents right before tryouts? Our tryouts are in a couple weeks and I feel like I want to throw something out there like looking forward to seeing everyone, if there thinking of going somewhere else maybe please let me know. I understand most parents won't but does anyone else do this? How do you generally word it?

We typically had conversations with the parents throughout the season. On road trips we would often go out to dinner together or hang out at the hotel, so we would talk about all kinds of things, including plans for the following year. Sometimes people would come right out and say they were considering another team. Sometimes you could tell without them telling you. Honestly, I don't remember ever being blindsided by a parent's decisions. We either knew in advance or had a strong feeling. As a coach, I always appreciated honesty. I kind of figured that the parents expected honesty from me, so why shouldn't I expect honesty in return, right?

Before the end of the season we would offer spots to current players for the following season. We still asked them to attend the tryouts but to wear their uniforms so that the new people knew who they were. Typically they helped the coaches with the process rather than actually participating in the tryouts.

Our last two years of existence we didn't hold tryouts at all. Moving from 16u to 18u we had 3 openings. 3 players decided that they wanted to focus on high school ball and no longer travel, but would guest for local tournaments if we needed anyone. We had enough connections at that time that several players reached out to us about joining the team making tryouts irrelevant. We decided to skip our 2nd year of 18u so that we could play 23u instead. We had several players that were graduating high school and preparing for college ball and then added several players that were already playing college ball. That, also, was strictly work of mouth. Players that I had coached previously, and friends of theirs that were also college teammates.

Added: Tryouts were one of my lease favorite parts of travel ball so when we got to the point that we didn't need to have tryouts, we eliminated them without looking back.

 

[uncdrew]

I'm kinda switching it up a bit. But what about a general email to the current team parents right before tryouts? Our tryouts are in a couple weeks and I feel like I want to throw something out there like looking forward to seeing everyone, if there thinking of going somewhere else maybe please let me know. I understand most parents won't but does anyone else do this? How do you generally word it?

We get asked by the coach at the end of every season if we're coming back. It's usually a message to all parents, saying that coaches need to plan accordingly, and to contact him/her in private with their answer and any questions.

 

[Orange Socks]

Our coaches always had one on ones at the end of the week in Colorado. Usually gave feedback to the player and asked for a commitment for the fall if they want to stay.

 

[_MIA_]

DD’s coach calls everybody after spring/summer. It usually ends up being a 30 min conversation about everything I think she needs to work on..wouldn’t be surprised if he loses my number this year.

 

[coachdennis]

Does anyone have an offer letter they send out to players they are wanting to offer a spot on their team? Lastly does anyone have how long they have till offer decision needs to be made?
Thanks

We never used an offer letter. We would make personal contact to make an offer and answer any questions the family may have. In some cases discussions would take place after the tryout.
We did use a player/parent commitment letter that outlined practice schedule, tournament schedule, how fees were collected, fundraisers etc. A few years we had to include our bat sponsor and make sure the ladies were following the Miken sponsorship agreement.
As far as how long parents had to decide...Families should do their homework prior to attending tryouts and have a short list of teams they feel meets their needs before they tryout.
We would still give them 3-4 days days but, your serious families that do their homework generally do not need that long to make a decision. We also were never looking for more than 2-3 per team and used our current players to show how to run the specific drills and the families could also see the talent they were going to be playing with. Returning families helped with registration, concessions and where needed so they were available if a parent wanted to chat softball.
The new families to travel tend to not understand how the system works, commitment involved etc.
Our tryout form was also kind of like a job application to help them and at times was used to help select ladies of equal talent. These attached are modified from when we had the Cincy Static but are close to what we had back then.