re: Youth Coaches - Cutting a Player

One poster has already laid out the plan. You need to have other coaches or someone to tied to the team to provide their reasons as well as your own.

I would still like to know the age of this team. Especially if you are going from coaches pitch to kids pitch. Assuming you're going to be AAA or Major is very lofty expectations.

To the posters ragging on you about cutting a kid(s), they either don't have kids or their kids weren't that good at sports. At 9 years old kids who work hard in practice and want to get rings or hold the trophy don't want other kids to bring them down. They know what winning is and who is keeping them from it.

Things were much better (in my opinion) when I was a kid. Everyone went to their local playground league. Everyone got divided up into teams. League play was held. Towards the middle/end of league play, all-star team tryouts were held, the team was chosen, and at the end of the league, the all-star team did their thing the rest of the summer.

Everyone got to play, and the best kids got to play a second season.

To the OP... you never really said why you think a few kids will be cut. Does the next level have a smaller roster size? Are you planning on replacing those kids with other kids?

I would tell all the parents now that you are going to hold an open tryout in a month or so, and you will take the best 13 kids (or whatever the number is) and since it's an open tryout, there will be kids who try out who are not on the current team. As such, you will take the best 13 kids, which means it is possible that one or more current kids won't make the team.

I would make sure that you have a completely objective tryout system - where things are clearly measured and tracked.

And for the kids that don't make the team, I would offer to help find them another league to play in.

This is much easier to accomplish when the kids are going to be 13, as opposed to 9.

I also think you need to make very clear that you will hold an open tryout each summer and that the kids who are cut are welcome to try out again next year. If you are going to hire mercenaries, might as well hire mercenaries each year.