Fall 2021 Parent Survey Results
November 2021
There are two responses above that we’d like to work on this spring
- Parents coaching from the sideline
- Spectators yelling at referee
We want parents to cheer for their children. But we don’t want parents to coach or direct their child from the sideline. It’s part of our culture and the way we believe the games should be played. And, we don’t want our spectators talking to referees at all. The leading reason why referees quit is being yelled at by spectators and coaches. Please help us with this.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Feedback – this is a sampling of the comments along with some background
Practice time for young teams is not parent friendly
We’ve struggled to find a way around having practice at dinner time; the comment pertained to Paws, but it’s true of all ages. We know it’s an issue, but have not come up with a good alternative. In many cases we need to run 2 practices back-to-back and that requires starting one at dinner time.
Quality of fields is poor
Most of the fields are used 4 nights a week for practice plus weekend games. With over 1000 kids playing soccer, our fields do take a beating. We have been looking for a volunteer to be the field manager for recreational soccer.
Practice times known at registration
Once we know how many teams we have of each age, we create a field master plan that is used to allocate practice space. In order to get coaches to agree to coach, we work around their personal schedules. With this information we then assign a team to a specific field, day and time. There is no way to do that ahead of time.
Send fewer emails.
We believe in over communicating so that you know what is going on.
Labeling fields to make it easier to find them.
Yes. We will do this in the spring. It was missed in the fall due to a lack of volunteers to handle all of the field related work.
More adult referees
Great point. Maintaining a qualified pool of referees is an on-going challenge. We hold a free class each season to teach new referees. We’d love to have more parents volunteer to become certified. That’s the only way we’ll get more adult referees. We don’t have many adults in the community who referee recreational soccer.
Academy
Helpful feedback; we agree with the input. Fall was a challenge. We had several coaches/trainers committed to run the program and none of them ended up being available. That over-taxed the resources we had. We have plans in place to address this in the spring and have a more equitable approach to how tournaments are handled. Academy will have a dedicated Admin to improve communication. We have several professional trainers under contract to coach and train teams.
Age Differences Across an Age Bracket
Recreational soccer has been run with kids playing in 2-year age brackets. We eliminated that in our Cubs and Passers program by moving to single birth years. We are looking at the Wings program to see if we have enough players to organize teams by a single birth year. We recognize that there can be a large gap in skill and size among players when two birthyears play together. The SAY league we play in is organized in two-year birthyear increments. We believe that playing in single year birthyear increments is ideal. At the older ages, there are not enough kids playing soccer for most communities to do that and be able to field teams.
Parity with Other Clubs
That’s something we’ll look at. Historically, our teams match up pretty well against other communities.
Kickers and Strikers and 7v7 Leagues
Great suggestion. Will talk it at our spring planning meeting.
Jersey Sizes
We order jersey sizes based on the information we get at sign up. We do not have the resources to double check the jersey size ordered with the ones that are packaged for each team. We hope the coach is giving players the right size. Getting 1000-plus uniforms ordered correctly and handed out to coaches then players is another area where we could use more volunteer help.
Offer a clinic a few weeks before practice starts to have kids who are knew to soccer learn the basics
That’s a great idea. Something to think about.
Positive Feedback to Erika and Anthony – thanks for the shout out to them. We are one of the few clubs that has people with a deep knowledge of soccer. Both have advanced national coaching licenses and years of experience coaching all ages.
Thank you for recognizing our coaches. The quality of coaching has improved in the 10 years that I’ve been associated with the club. I’m impressed with the commitment of the parents who coach in our program.