Designing Your Tryout Plan
Having a well-designed plan for the season will guide your decision-making and support your team’s success.
Here are the factors to consider when designing tryouts.
Tryouts - A vital system to building a strong program
Last time I suggested implementing a conditioning camp the week prior to preseason along with some initial considerations about your tryout system. In today’s blog post, I will provide additional details for a tryout model.
Tryout Factors
As you design the tryout system you will need to consider:
The number of staff members you have at your disposal
The number of players you expect to participate (number, grade level, position)
The number of courts/areas you are able to use
Your time frame (number of days and hours/day)
Evaluation vs Training
As you design your plan for the season, maximizing the efficiency of how days are used will lead to program success. For your tryout days, you will need to balance two objectives: 1) Provide enough time for tryouts to ensure the best decisions are made, and 2) Finalize your team(s) quickly to maximize the amount time you spend training your players.
Ideally, as you design the specific tryout plan, incorporate as much training as possible (as opposed to simply doing evaluations without any feedback). This is vital for all levels in your program given that your first matches are only a couple of weeks away.
To achieve this I would suggest the following approach:
Separate the tryout for returning players from the freshmen tryout. This means more time for your staff but it allows more quality time and eyes on each group.
Assign staff members roles (and this may include getting some extra help for a few days) - with some staff members running drills while others are providing feedback. All staff members will be asked for feedback regarding the players.
Statistics - Depending on your support group and technology - I would suggest taking key stats during the tryout process. Individual hitting efficiency, passing scores, serving ratings, etc. will provide additional feedback that allows you to compare staff member’s evaluations to actual performance measures. (Note: Stats may be beneficial when you need to explain certain decisions.)
Include 6 vs 6 competitions at each level. Though individual performance is a key to tryout decisions, watching those individuals compete under pressure will provide critical feedback regarding the mental abilities of these players.
The Head Coach
The successful program is defined by the head coach and her/his connection to all of the teams in the program. This is a second reason to have separate tryouts for returners and freshmen. Many of the freshmen will be your future varsity - so take an active role in deciding who should be in the program. To allow others to make these decisions without your feedback is short-sighted.
Secondly, when decisions are announced, most parents/players who are looking for an explanation as to why they were cut or placed on a specific team, will want to speak to the Head Coach (and you should be the one dealing with them). By having direct involvement with the tryout system at all levels you will know exactly why each decision was made.
Time frame
Here is one format that was successful for my programs over the years. This was used for the first week of preseason:
Freshmen tryout/practice: 8:00am - 9:30am
Program conditioning (all players together): 9:30am - 10:00am
Returners tryout/practice: 10:00am - 12noon
All Players tryout/practice: 3:00pm - 5:00pm (conditioning included)
I found that including all players in at least one session provided the freshmen with a direct connection to the returner players. This allowed the freshmen to experience the work ethic, energy, and performance demonstrated by the older players. Again, this type of influence will help build and sustain your program’s culture from one season to the next.
The goal was to complete the tryout for returning players within two to three days while the freshmen group may take a full week (depending on numbers and skill level). Typically, initial cuts were made for returners after the second day and for freshmen after the third day (for those players that were clearly going to be cut due to skill level).
format
I designed and implemented my practice plan into tryouts. This way every session was focused on preparing the teams for each cycle of the fall season. Tryouts were simply incorporated into our daily practices. During practice, I would allocate specific time to position training (setters, pins, middles, DS) and this specialization supported the tryout process as it allowed players to compete with each other by position.
Decision-making and team selection
In the next blog post I will discuss key factors that should be considered by your staff as you make player decisions for each team in your program.