Rebuilding a league

[shawjbjr]

Hello everyone,

First, let me give you some history. Back in the late 80s - early 90s, the towns in our high school had great teams and plenty of support. HS winning multiple state titles. Fast forward to now and the landscape is different. Competition for athletes is greater with other sports like soccer and lacrosse. Promotion of the rec leagues is almost non-existent so the feeders into the HS are not getting the job done as well on the field.

We have a new HS head coach with some great credentials who wants to get involved. So that is a big plus.

So my question to all of you is: What have you seen done to promote a league? and any suggestions you may have?

We are also reorganizing the board of directors since the current group is stepping down.

Thanks.

 

[HornetsCoach]

I know in our town the HS coaches run free clinics that are advertised to the REC league.

Having a 5th grade girl get personal instruction on pitching from one of the high school coaches up at the really cool high school facility works on a lot of levels - it is really cool plus the girl gets to meet the coach who is really nice plus it makes the girl better so she has more success in soft ball and is more likely to stick in it, maybe even make it her Primary Sport.

 

[marriard]

We have had great success with improving our league (though it never was that bad to begin with).

Here are some ideas:

1. High School players clinic with the HS head coach and ALL his players - especially those who were involved the league when they were young. Do it by division and have a league wide one. LOTS of stations so coaches get ideas for their practices
2. We have SUNDAY SESSIONS through out the season for Pitchers and Catchers. The local HS girls come out (for service hours) and mentor the young kids with adult supervision. This has immeasurably helped our league in quality of pitching, catching and playing. Clinics through out the league
3. Coaches clinics. Have someone respectable come out and run a mandatory coaches clinic on how the league wants the basic skills taught and the drills to teach them. Also teach them how to organize a practice - in our league the one person hitting grounders to the fielders drill is outlawed - multiple stations are IN. Helping the coaches helps the league big time.
4. Flyers at all the schools in take home packs - but also look for opportunities to have 2 minutes at assemblies. Every school district has different rules and private v public will have different rules as well. Doesn't hurt to ask. Grade schools are your targets - also kindergartens. Also see if the school might be open to having the HS coach or one of your coaches run a PE class. Again schools will have rules about this but if you have a teacher on the board or is a coach you may be able to get directly into the school
5. Which leads to SOFTBALL T-BALL for ages 4-6. All girls teams - you only need 7/team so you get 21 kids you have 3 teams. Make it fun and they all come back ready for 8U. Also it keeps them out of Boys T-Ball and also stops you putting too young players in 8U who are not ready
6. Rule reviews. Let make sure you are catering for the right level of player in each division.
7. Team creation. New teams every year, full draft. Only allow one head coach and one assistant - they can draft another assistant. Assign coaches kids into the draft (so if they are a 1st round pick they lose a 1st round pick, 5th round, 5th round etc). Instruct coaches that they MUST have 2 pitchers by the end of the 3rd round or the draft will be restarted.
8. Evaluations for all draftable divisions run independently by the local High School. This way you have an independent league assessment of players for new coaches or those who can't get out to evaluations. Players who don't attend evals are not draftable and picked out of a hat at the end of the draft - this stops someone trying to hide someone.
9. Promotions: we had a 'Friend Recruit' promotion - where if you referred a new player to the league you got a $10 local gift certificate to the local sporting good store. We have also teamed up with the local fitness places - $10 off registrations for anyone who is a member of the local fitness organization (LA Fitness, 24hours, etc, etc)
10. If your park is near other activities set up a tent for registration across from the soccer fields/competing sport while they are playing or even better if they have an end of year presentation (so parents are looking for the 'next' sport or season). We ran a car wash as part of this one year which helped (however this has since been banned because the other sports complained to the city)
11. Revamp your website to make it clean and clear and make sure it is dead easy to register. Eteamz or other sites give you a lot of capabilities for a good price. Also take care of your sponsors on the website - front and center. Be organized: Practice & Games schedules, results, clinic times, forms, info all need to be on the site.


Also you build from the younger groups up. If no one has been looking after the current 12U group it is very likely too late for them though you do what you can. You build through 8U/10u. Our 10U teams would tear apart all but one of our 12U teams.


Biggest piece of advice: BE ORGANIZED.

Hope some of this helps. It helped us.

 

[shawjbjr]

Thanks for all the ideas.