Every year, many hours are spent balancing teams in order to uphold one of the basic tenets of the AYSO philosophy. Each region in AYSO must implement a program for balancing teams. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this, all of which evaluate each individual player's abilities, and form teams with an overall, approximately equal rating. Each team should then be comprised of similar, if not equal, numbers of all levels of players and experience.
In Region 137, all players from Under 19 (Division 1) to Under 6 (Division 7) are rated at the end of each season by their coaches. This information, along with the age and years of experience are input into EAYSO, a computerprogram available from AYSO National Support Center. All new players are given equivalent ratings as we have no way to assess them without putting them through a try-out process. We believe this is an unnecessary stress to put new players through, and believe that an equivalent rating balances out overall. Following the final registration for our Region, all the player data is input into the computer. We then ask the computer to form a particular number of teams and thus, balanced teams are formed.
The process of team balancing and formation is accomplished through the efforts of board members and other volunteers in the region. Anyone is welcome to help with this lengthy and arduous process. The result of the process is that no team has all the most experienced players, no team has all the first year players, and each team starts out with an equal footing. No changes will be made to rosters once we have completed this process.
In terms of player placement on a particular team, regardless of any special requests, the only placement that is guaranteed is that a coach can have his or her child on the team they coach.
Every year there are complaints about team balancing and formation. It varies from the complaint of one team being hand-picked, or stacked by a coach, to it doesn't matter that the team is stronger or weaker than all the others, as long as the Region transfers the individual's child. For those of you who have those complaints, you are not alone. We understand that you are seeking what you believe to be the best for your child. We ask that you understand that we are seeking what we believe to be the best situation for all the participants in our Region and the integrity of the AYSO program. Any help you would like to contribute to that end is welcome.