A common challenge faced by all recreational youth sports leagues is team parity. Whether by design or by accident, when teams vary widely in talent and competitiveness the league and, more importantly, the kids will suffer. You will hear parents, coaches, and kids grumbling all season long. I say, Rightly So! No one signs up to watch their kids get their butts handed to them game after game! Maybe a little less hard to swallow, but the opposite is also true. Parents don’t want to see their kids running circles around the other teams game after game. Its embarrassing and inevitably you become that team. You know that team, its the one everyone believes has evil parents who constructed this team for world domination!!! Their kids play dirty, coaches are maniacs, and the parents are only concerned about winning.

As a league administrator, one of the few things in our DIRECT control is the ability to balance teams or at least make a best effort attempt! One of my pet projects has been to develop a league management software system that will provide league administrators a tool to balance teams. Like many other volunteers, I already have a million other jobs I’m involved in with my league.  So it needed to be simple, require little intervention from me, and provide other league volunteers information to get their jobs done!

The Problem – No Time!

The best method I’ve seen is having multiple try-outs (to get the most kids) with a blind draft following it. Using a couple coaches/league officials, each person ranks the player on a pre-determined skills test. Then teams are then put together by a league official(s) and reviewed by the coaches. If a coach believes his/her team will not be competitive they would identify the reasons why. After any adjustments, the teams get finalized and the season is off.

The problem is “Who has time for that?” In every sports league my kids have played (baseball, basketball, football, soccer, even high-school sports) there are never enough volunteers. There’s not enough volunteers to coach and even fewer to manage the league! I’ve been involved with the recreational soccer program in my township for over 15 years. First as an assistant coach, then head coach, divisional commissioner, registration person, vice-president and finally president. Our volunteers, just like yours, are very dedicated and want to develop our program and make it better for the kids. However, with usually just enough volunteers to run things, many projects or ideas go undone or less than well done. Tryouts are just another one of those projects that don’t always get done.

The Solution – Tools for League Administrators

The real advantage is having the tools necessary to increase the likelihood of parity amongst the teams. When your team feels they can compete with any other team in your league, coaches, players, and parents will appreciate it. Striving towards it, is what we can do as league administrators. Communicating this goal to your coaches and general membership will give you some buy-in even if it doesn’t turn out 100%.

I’ve included a number of screen shots of my current system.  They are located in the menu system at the top of this web page, or under these links:


This program is not just limited to soccer, and could be tailored to just about any other sport. If your league already has a programmer or someone to help you, review what I’ve done and take any ideas you find useful. In addition, pass along any ideas you think may help me! I’m always looking to improve things. If you believe this would be beneficial to your league and would like something developed, email me at jerry@youthsportsparity.org Sorry… I cannot work for free! The cost of the application will be dependent upon size of your league and the customizations necessary to fit your sports model.

One final note, I’m sure everyone knows is that no system is fool proof! Selection of teams is sometimes as much LUCK as it is a science. Just a case to the point: A few years ago one our divisional commissioners had a tryout with 90% attendance. All of the coaches attended the two tryout dates and saw the kids. The divisional commissioner put the teams together leaving out the coaches and their children and presented the final teams to the coaches. The coaches reviewed the teams all agreed they were balanced, and then the entire team was put in a hat to be drawn at random. Each coach then drew their team. So how do you think it turned out? I would have swore it was going to be a perfectly balanced season. Well, the divisional commissioner’s team did not win a game all season and the “top” team won every game with a margin!! Even when the top two teams met in a playoff at the end of the season, the “top” team easily beat the other by a 6 goal margin. The parents of the losing team were convinced the “top” team was stacked by the coach or other league official! As you can see, the “numbers” don’t always dictate how the season will flow.

Best of luck to all of you volunteers out there!  Go visit My Weblog to see what has been going on, I appreciate your comments!

Jerry