Beyond the Board: Draft Night Drama - Why it Happens, Why it Hurts Players, and How Leagues and Coaches can Fix It

Youth recreational sports is all about the kids, right? Then why does draft night sometimes turn contentious? Here are a few reasons why, and what you can do about it.

• Expectations. People are generally upset when something turns out far different from what they thought it would be. As a league admin, make sure you communicate clearly and consistently with your coaches and board members ahead of time. Doing this at a coach’s meeting is a good idea because it allows for dialogue and the opportunity to make sure everyone is on the same page. Consider sending an email afterward to summarize what was discussed. This also covers bases to ensure coaches who couldn’t make the in-person meeting are still in the know. As a coach, if you are unsure of how draft night will work, ask your board! Don’t show up hoping for the best. You might find yourself in the middle of an unfair draft process and realize it is too late to do anything about it. Suggestions on how to improve the draft process should be discussed openly between coaches and the board well in advance of draft night.
• Fairness. If the expectations of your draft night process include obvious unfairness and they aren’t revised in advance, no amount of communicating ahead of time will fix that. Make sure you eliminate unfair processes that give advantage or disadvantage to any coach. The most common fairness issues we learned about in talking with over 100 leagues across the country included:
  • Frozen players. The most fair method for freezing players is to only freeze Coach’s player. No one else. Some leagues who have a hard time recruiting volunteer coaches might allow a coach and assistant coach to pair up, freezing both their players to the same team. This creates an incentive for more parents to step up and coach. Avoid this if you can, but if you find it is necessary, be sure to handle the assessed round correctly, which we will cover in a minute. Freezing past players is sometimes used as incentive for a coach (and players) to return. But this comes at a great cost because almost always the coach will only want to freeze players with higher skill level. That is a quick and unproductive path to unbalanced teams. The result will likely be frustrated newer coaches (leading to less enthusiasm while coaching the kids and unlikely to return next season). Meanwhile, families will quickly grow tired of showing up on Saturdays just to watch another lopsided loss. It is no fun for Grandma or Grandpa either, who came from out of town just to watch the game. And, most importantly, players will not as effectively develop in their love of the game or their skill, and they will lose interest. For a more in-depth read of why balanced teams are so important, click here: Unbalanced Teams Are Ruining Your Rec League - How to Fix It
  • Draft order. Keep it random. Most leagues draw names out of a hat. Do not give an advantage to a coach who won last year. That perpetuates the conflict around potentially unbalanced teams.
  • Special Requests. This is a can of worms. There may be some requests that seem justifiable, but as soon as the league opens the door to requests, the more requests will come and it can be overwhelming to manage, not to mention potentially unfair. Carpool requests, friend requests, coach requests, practice day requests, and more. They can all lead to parents gaming the system to create a reason to stack a team with higher skilled players. Not all requests are gaming the system, though, so be sure to express empathy and understanding when those requests are made, and collaborate on a solution that can work for that family. Making new friendships with teammates and carpool buddies is actually one of the many great opportunities found in youth sports. A good way to establish and keep a no-requests policy is to state it upfront during player registration: “Players will be selected in a draft process. Requests for coaches, teammates, etc are not accepted. No refunds will be issued after the refund deadline.” This also sets expectations, so no one is surprised.
  • Coach’s player drafted too high, or too low. Assessed Round is a unique feature in the Bravara system, a digital player evaluation and draft tool that is free to use. It objectively suggests an appropriate draft round for each evaluated player. When a coach expresses concern that a coach’s player is being assigned a draft round that is too high or too low, the reply from the Board is simple: It’s right here, Coach. Bravara says this player has an Assessed Round of 2, so they will be assigned as the team’s 2nd round pick. With Bravara, league admin imports a csv file of the current season player set. Bravara puts players in appropriate divisions. League admin can move/add/delete players as needed, and enters the coaches for each division. Independent (non-coach) evaluators can also be added – we’ll refer to coaches from now on, but it works the same for independent evaluators. Bravara sends invites to coaches to download the app. Coaches download the app and enter the 4-digit code provided in the invite email, and BOOM!…all players in Coach’s assigned division are automatically loaded. The only thing Coach has to do is show up to the field with their phone or tablet and enter ratings directly into the app. Coach will always see their own ratings, but won’t ever see a specific rating from any other coach or evaluator. Does your league typically collect coach ratings only to spend hours of board member time to manually enter them into a spreadsheet, just so you can re-send average ratings back out to all coaches? Well, those days are now over! Bravara automatically averages the ratings of the coaches/evaluators that league admin specifies should be averaged. It’s called the All Evaluators average. For example, some leagues only want non-coach evaluators to be included. When Coach navigates to the draft section of the app, they will see their own ratings by default, and they can toggle to the All Evaluators average at any time. In addition to the typical categories like hitting, running, outfield, etc., Bravara calculates an Overall category to account for some skills having higher impact to a team than others. For example, in baseball and softball, hitting is more impactful than outfield. Players are then assigned an Assessed Round based on their Overall ranking. A division with eight teams, for instance, will have eight 1st rounders, eight 2nd rounders, and so on. It’s the best and easiest way to collect and organize player evaluation data, and to have it immediately ready to help form balanced teams. And all without the draft night drama.
• Process. “Already picked” or “Come on, Coach, time is up. Make your pick.” These are examples of how inefficiencies in the draft process can add to tension in the room. Anxious coaches can become frustrated with others in the room who are not prepared to make their picks in a timely manner. When someone makes their frustration known, the competitive nature of the draft increases and can result in more draft night drama. In the same Bravara system mentioned before, coaches and league admins have a draft section in the app. In the draft section, coaches see their own ratings they entered for all players, and each category is sortable top to bottom. The Available Players list shows all the players not yet picked in the draft. This makes it easy for coach to find their next best pick. Want the next overall highest pick? Tap on Overall and it ranks top to bottom by that category. Want the next best pitcher available? Tap Pitching, and the rankings re-order by that category. Coaches are only a tap or two away from choosing their next pick. When Coach calls out their pick, league admin assigns the player in the Bravara app on their device where their league admin login enables admin features. They tap on the player, then tap on the coach/team that just chose them. Then, that player disappears in real time from all admin’s and coaches’ Available Players list. Bravara also calculates Team Stats to assess strength of each team. It updates after each pick, so league admin can verify teams are balanced at any time. If admin spots something out of balance, they can step in to guide a coach who may need help making stronger picks moving forward. By the end of draft night, Bravara has all teams formed right in the app. Trades, undos, and more are all enabled in the app as well. All it takes is a tap.

Please comment with what else stirs the pot on your draft night. What have you done to reduce draft night drama? It’s all about the kids. Thanks for all you do!