Creating a team

[whiporee]

Hi everyone --

We currently play under a P&R department, but as the larger organizations move into our state and area, they're making it harder on us. for this season they wanted us to move down to C, and they've put lots of restrictions on uniforms and coaches and such. Our coach is great, but she's also openly out, and that's caused some issues from time to time with the P&R district. So out coaches and I have start to investigate what we'd need to do to switch organizations.

The problem when we look at other organizations is that they -- justifiably so -- have their own ways of doing things, and our coach is also nervous about our players being poached by other parts of the organization. These girls only have a couple of years let to play (it's 16U) and we just want to keep our chemistry together.

So, with not tons to do these days, we were chatting the other day about maybe starting our own organization. Looking at the UTrip and USA Softball requirements it doesn't seem too tough, but since I don't know anything about it I thought I'd ask here and see what people thought of the idea, things to investigage and horror stories that might pop up.

And it beats talking about the stupid virus.

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[uncdrew]

It does seem very easy to create a team. Some paperwork and reserving a field and insurance and away we go.

 

[YOCOACH]

It's easy to say to do but an awful lot of extra work not many know about.

Before you do anything, you'll need to find practice facilities; outdoor fields and if in a cold weather state, indoor facilities. Then you'll need to figure out the total cost based on the number of times you might want to practice.

Next, you'll want to find a uniform company, athletic shop, etc. etc. and design uniforms. Once designed, you'll need to shop them around for price, Two complete sets (shirts, pants and socks) plus a belt is what I do yearly.

After that, you'll need to price equipment if you'll be including that in the package. The standard is usually a new batting helmet and bat bag/bat pack/catcher's bag at the minimum. I include a play calling wristband for my team.

Figure out which tournaments you'd like to play in and the costs associated with them.

Find team insurance.

Find out the sanctioning bodies of your tournament and the sanctioning fee per sanction..

These are just the basic costs. You'll find that there are always miscellaneous costs associated with it such as team practice equipment like team catchers equipment, balls, Bownets (or equivalent), hitting tee/tees, Whiphit or whatever other hitting/teaching aids your coach may want/need.

Once you have this all added up, you now have a basic budget. Take another 10% and add it on top for miscellaneous and emergency expenditures. Now divide by the number of players you have and you have your fees.

{Once you set the fees, you'll want to incorporate somehow. You'll need to consult with an accountant to in order to figure out which is the best way to go about it. When you receive your corporation papers, you can now go to a local bank and open your business/team checking account.} This, obviously only needs to happen once.

Then the real work begins because you have to collect the fees, book the facilities, sanction your roster, sign-up for and pay the entry fees for your tournaments, if your team will travel to overnighters, find reasonably priced hotels and reserve a block of rooms for each overnighter, order sizing uniforms, size the players, order the uniforms, order sample batting helmets, size the players for helmets, order the helmets, order batpacks, order catchers bags, return the sample uniforms and helmets, order the practice equipment/ teaching aids and the list goes on and on all while maintaining a challenging practice schedule and furthering the team's skillset.

The above list I do every year.

There are several ways to lower the fees a bit.

Project a target of, say as an example, $3000 to help lower individual players fees. Now you have to have fundraisers to make up that 3K.

You could join an organization that will pretty much leave you alone (such as mine) and will allow you to use their name, organization colors and 501 (c) 3 status not only to give potential business sponsors a tax write-off if they choose to donate/sponsor a player but to open your team checking account.

You could join an organization that pretty much leaves you alone but will purchase uniforms, organizational/team insurance, facility rentals etc. for bigger discounts.

You could join an organization that runs everything and will tell you this is the team fee to play for us and these are the tournaments you will play in.

Or, you could join an organization that's anywhere in between these or use any combination of business sponsors, fundraisers joining an organization etc.. It's all in what you want.

 

[flash277]

YOCOACH said it all, I'll just say my DD is now on a single, non organization team (16u), it's great. We not handcuffed by organization rules, we know every dollar spent goes to our team, not the organization's powerhouse teams ( been there, done that).

 

[uncdrew]

But honestly, it's not that hard - lots is just research and busy work. It takes phone calls and a spreadsheet. Perhaps those are easier for some than others, and perhaps some people have more free time and/or passion for it than others. Year 2 and beyond is even easier as you know more and have many of those items already in place.

I've been a coach, so I know. But at the same time it's all pretty easy and there are lots of helpful people. Obviously it's not too hard as there are tens of thousands of teams across America. The hard part about coaching, as we all know, is the parents.

 

[whiporee]

Thanks for all the good insight and info. Here's the follow up -- do you think forming our own team would be worth it for a relatively short amount of time, or should we suck it up and find an organization we can live with?

 

[radness]

Thanks for all the good insight and info. Here's the follow up -- do you think forming our own team would be worth it for a relatively short amount of time, or should we suck it up and find an organization we can live with?

That last question is your biggest decision, as the work /time to put in will be yours.
Short term goal hmmmm?
Starting a team always has additional hoops and bumps in the road. As does joining another team.
If this is compaired to pick your battle,
could you...
Stay where your at and face the reality and confront bigotry?
Just sayin' maybe what you have already is worth that battle!!!

 

[FP26]

Thanks for all the good insight and info. Here's the follow up -- do you think forming our own team would be worth it for a relatively short amount of time, or should we suck it up and find an organization we can live with?

Like some others on here I have worn many hats throughout DD's journey. The post by @YOCOACH is excellent because it mentions so many aspects that the average parent takes for granted. But as others have stated, the process is manageable if you have the time needed and are organized. That said, I'm not sure I would want to personally invest the necessary effort for a short term situation. If I only expected this to last a year or two, and with the unknowns facing this particular summer, I would not want to start something from the ground up. If I believed it would exist for several years, my opinion may change. After all, each of the items involved are challenging, but once you develop a structure and some contacts, each year after the first becomes a little bit easier. You develop a system after a while. Ultimately there are a lot of factors to consider, and each person's decision may be different. Best of luck in whatever you decide!

 

[whiporee]

That last question is your biggest decision, as the work /time to put in will be yours.
Short term goal hmmmm?
Starting a team always has additional hoops and bumps in the road. As does joining another team.
If this is compaired to pick your battle,
could you...
Stay where your at and face the reality and confront bigotry?
Just sayin' maybe what you have already is worth that battle!!!

The bigotry isn't the giant deal. it's a lot more subtle than overt -- like telling our coach she REALLY needed to make one of the fathers her lead assistant, and then turning towards him as more of their contact.

The biggest thing is that they don't really want us. Their philosophy is that with all the big organizations coming into our region, the most serious girls are gravitating towards them and it's harder for the whole competitive structure to recruit and maintain players. We're a 16U and we're the only competitive team in the district, when they used to have teams all the way down to 10. So they've been wanting to move towards focusing on purely rec ball. And because of that. they haven't been very responsive to us, they've put limits on how much we can spend on uniforms (even though the parents are cool with the costs) and telling us what tourneys we can and can't play in. So it's a board that just isn't tied into our needs and desires, and instead has a different focus.

And that would be acceptable except, for example, now when we're trying to find tourneys to replace the ones that have been lost, and we're not even sure they'll let us play at all. They were a week ahead of the schools closing in terms of banning us from practicing, and won't commit to us being allowed to play even when the stay-at-homes are lifted. We're not a great team -- we are a bunch of girls who have moved up from rec a few years ago, and we do have trouble competing with the larger organizations.

Like I said above, last year they wanted us to moe down to C because we didn't win enough, and they talked about just not having us at all. This was late in the year, after tryouts, so our girls would have been left out in the cold had we not been able to talk them into it. And we're scared that given everything that has happened this year, they're likely to do that again.

So that's most of our motivation.

 

[YOCOACH]

Given the situation that you're in, I would suggest shopping your team around so to speak. I suggest looking for a smaller organization that will pretty much leave you alone, allow you to use their name, organizational colors and if they're a 501(c)3, all the better. IMO, if they purchase organization/team insurance, uniforms and equipment as an organization, that's a plus also because it helps to keep fees down since they'll usually get a bigger discount than an individual team will. If they want to dictate team fees, tournaments or who the AC's are...RUN.
Just my .02.