Dadof3 posted:Ha ha ha, had to bring this up. This was during the selection of the 11u a/b/c teams. The "a" team has been together as a whole group since coach pitch (8yrs old) The coaches kid last year made the team "because he was put in sacrificial positions" this year its because "he has fire in his eyes when he is at bat" another kid because "well he has been on the team for the last four years" Ha ha ha. It is all to keep them together until after 12 so they can all go to cooperstown together. This team didn't win a single tournament last year. As a coach, wouldn't you want change so you can hopefully have a better chance at winning?
Sounds to me like your local organization needs to come up with some rules.....and if they have them put someone in place to enforce them. We had 3 teams in our small town starting in 3rd grade....3rd-5th grade played together. Every year, we held a "draft" to pick the 3rd graders and assign them to each team. You couldn't change teams....you stayed with your team for all 3 years. If a younger brother came up, he was put on the team with the older brother. We had all dads (or maybe uncles) coaching....but they normally were only involved a couple years while their kids were there. We'd usually have a 5th grade dad as HC, then the others as assistants....so nobody really had any unfair opportunities as you were only a HC one year and your son was already on the team. Your only real task was drafting the 3 or 4 third graders....then coaching for 5 or 6 weeks. Our teams were usually pretty evenly matched....though one or 2 third graders who could really play could really help out a team. We played league games only. If anyone wanted to take a team for weekend tourneys, we normally just picked kids from all 3 teams and went and played. Never really had any issues other than a few parents who complained that their son didn't get to go to any tourneys....but it was never a major problem