We have a group from the ASA board do the selections and then hand the coaches their roster on the coaches meeting at the beginning of the season.  

The kids are separated into division based on their age:
4-5 yr old into U6 (under 6)
6-7 yr old into U8 (under 8)
8-9 yr old into U10 (under 10)

Each division is separated into 4 groups:
1. oldest boys
2. oldest girls
3. youngest boys
4. youngest girls

A volunteer that wants to be a head coach will represent a team. A random number will be chosen for each team to see the order of the selection.

Each team's first pick will be to select the head coaches child(s), if they are in the group being selected. Otherwise a number is drawn and that player is assigned to their team. This will happen for next coach in the selection order, until all of the players in that group are assigned to a team.

If a sibling has been chosen that is in the same division, they will get placed on the same team. That sibling will be the coaches next selection if they are within the same group or their first selection if they are in another group.

Late registrations are permitted if there is roster space to even out the number of players per team in the division after the draft has completed. The team with the next pick will get the first registration that comes in. This continues with the selection order until all players have been assigned a team or until the teams are full.

Why did we decide to change?

Every year we have an end of the year coaches meeting. We invite all the coaches from that year to come and voice their concerns or comments on how the season went and things we could do to help make the program better. Some comments are made in public and some contact the board members directly one on one. Almost every year the issue of drafting teams come up. Here are some of the concerns:

1. New coaches. We are fortunate that we have new parents offering to get involved and want to coach. Many of these coaches are new to the area and don’t know but a handful of kids in town. When it comes to drafting a team they don’t have any idea if little Billy is any good or not – big disadvantage compared to someone from Auburn who knows most if not all the players. This has shown over the years to be very frustrating for a coach and for the parents. Some teams may go an entire season without winning a game and could be based on the fact that they didn’t know any of the players they were picking.

 2. Development. It forces coaches to work more on developing a team. Instead of having an all star team you have a few average, but willing kids on your team. This will force coaches to really work on developing some of your players to improve your team instead of relying on just a few.

 3. Competitiveness. You would be amazed at how many requests we get every year from parents telling us that they want little Billy to play on Coach A’s team or a group of parents all live in the same area and need their five kids to all play on the same team. We need to remember that this is a recreational league at this age. Our job as a league and as coaches is to develop and teach them. We have noticed that playing to win is more important to the parents than it is the child…the kids just want to play…the parents really like to win.

 4. Errors. There is a lot of work that goes into running a program like ASA. We have people working full time jobs helping out on a volunteer basis sometimes working part-time hours at ASA. Our registration comes from Auburn, Pawnee, Waverly, Divernon, Loami, Franklin, and Palmyra. It takes a lot to make sure all the players are accounted for and put in the proper town to be selected on a proper team. We had an issue one year where a Pawnee coach drafted an Auburn team. By having a random selection we are hoping to be able to check and double check that no player is missed and all players are placed on the correct team – this also is taking into account that we are using online registration and paper registration it has been a little tricky making sure we have all the players accounted for.

5. Assistant coaches.  For the U6, U8, and U10 divisions we have not allowed a coach to pick their assistant for a while now - this was known as stacking a team. We would have a coach with a good player pick an assistant with a good player and for this age group could help make up a very good team.  

Currently this will only be for the Auburn and Pawnee teams. Waverly will decide how they will like to handle their teams.