coaches corner

Coaching Information for Fairfield Township Youth Basketball League

First off I want to thank you for coaching in our league. I know it is not always easy volunteering your time and energy, but we do it for the kids! There is a lot of info to go over when you are new to the league, I hope this answers a lot of your questions.

Coach Registration

Every coach must complete, it is on our website FTYBL.COM. We will ask you do a background check free of cost. All assistant coaches must complete the coach registration as well, any parent dealing with the kids needs to complete a background check. After this is completed we will place you and your assistants on your team. We are using Teamsnap this year & we hop this App will make it very easy to communicate with your players & parents.

You will also be asked to complete concussion training before you start practicing.

Practices

You will get an hour a week for practice. Practices can start as soon as you receive your roster. We are pretty flexible on times and days of the week. We do practice in almost every school in the district. Rob Schiele is in charge of our practices, his contact info will be given at Coaches meeting. We do our best to make up practices that are snowed out and that are missed due to holidays. Practices are always cancelled when school is out for any reason. Including Christmas break, Thanksgiving break, snow, etc….

Equipment

K-8th grades will receive equipment either at the coaches meeting or at a pick up date later on. We usually give you 2- 3 basketballs, coaching board, ball bag, and some practice pennies. Please try and take care of the equipment throughout the year. We do collect the equipment at the end of the season (We do not charge for unreturned equipment).

How teams are formed

In Kindergarten, Boys 1st &  the teams are formed by blind draw. Your team will start with up to 4 pre picks, 1 of which includes your own son or daughter. So basically you pick 3 others to start your team, the remaining players will be placed on your team. I do my absolute best to place Township kids and city kids on teams that practice in that area. But this has nothing to do with your pre picks, just the blind draw. 

       In 2nd -12th grades, we have a skills assessment and then a draft. Players that are pre picked by coaches should not attend the skills assessment. This is for non pre picked players only. The player will go through a short series of drills where you can assess their talent level. We feel like this helps newer coaches especially. A list of players will be sent out a few days before the draft for coaches to view for Pre picks.  No pre picks can be sent in after the assessment. So if you only have 2 pre picks to start your team & the other 4 coaches have there’s, at the draft you would get the first 2 picks until you have 4 total players like everyone else. The amount of Pre pick’s does change per grade level, here is a list:

K-4th grades – 4

5-8th grades – 5

9-10th grades – 7        

11/12th – 9

Code of Conduct

Everyone signs the code of conduct on the coach’s registration. Basically we are asking you to treat the Refs, parents, and players with respect. If you’re thrown out of a game for any reason, you will be suspended a minimum 1 game and you will not be a loud in the gym the following week.

Rules

Our rules are on the website under the RULES tab on the right side of the home page (Black Heading). Please read both sets of rules, we give rim height, basketball size, etc….

Numbers of players and teams

This is all based on how many sign up. No team will ever have more than 10 players. Players can be added to your team through Mid December from late sign ups.

Games

K-8th grades will start January 7th this year, and will play the next 7 Saturdays after to complete their 8 game regular season. 9-12th grades will start on Dec. 3rd and play the next 7 weeks minus holiday weekends. All leagues will play a 1 and out tournament following the regular season. The finals for K-3rd grades will be in March (Compass Elementary) , 4th-8th grades will be in March (High school Arena), 9-12th will be Feb. at the Freshman School.

Miscellaneous

Trophy’s or medals will be given to all Championship and Runner up teams. Participation trophies are given to K-2nd grades. 3rd – 6th receive water bottles or backpacks. Pictures are usually done the 3rd week of the season in the Crossroads Middle School Cafeteria. We usually hand out our picture packets the first game of the season. We do not do pictures for 9-12th grade teams.