QUALIFYING TO COACH
Each league has teams assigned based on color of the team. So, a coach is assigned to say Black1b, or the Black team in the 1st grade boys league. This relates to the color of the shirt that team is assigned, and many teams create their own nickname based on their color. The possible team colors are listed under "Management" and then "Managing Shirts" at the VYI, Basketball website.
VYI takes the safety of the children in our league very seriously and to that end requires every coach and assistant coach, or anyone authorized to conduct a team meeting with no other adults present, to complete a Coach Application each year, and to complete a Background Check every two years (actually, this is updated annually by NCSI).
The first step in having a coach be qualified for the season is to ask them to fill out the Volunteer/Coach Application at the VYI website and to complete a Background Check, which they should automatically do as part of the application process (NCSI link is embedded in the application). It is our hope to have all parents or siblings of younger players be the coach, but sometimes a person without children volunteers, and they should be given very special attention. Their reference should be checked by the League Commissioner. Because a non-family member is entered into the member database, the League Commissioner may not have access to that record, so changes to that record should be coordinated with the Sport Commissioner, John Windt, or Deb Dyson.
The second thing every coach must do is to volunteer for and complete the Building Director Test.
The final thing a coach must do, which is comes up prior to practice starting, is that each qualified coach must complete a Building Director Schedule for their team. This schedule identifies who the Building Director will be for each practice and game scheduled for the year, and enables our software to automatically send reminder emails to these parents of their volunteer obligation. Any parent who does not show up for their assigned time, should be reported by the coach to their League Commissioner and then to the Sport Commissioner and they will be charged the non-volunteer fee by the VYI Treasurer.
It is the League Commissioners responsibility to make sure all their coaches are fully qualified, and if not, to remove them and find a replacement, if possible. Making sure your coaches are qualified should not be a big deal, but sometimes is depending on how administratively savvy the League Commissioner and coaches are. If you do not follow up with each of your coaches to make sure they are qualified, this will be an issue when it comes time to assign practices. If your coaches do not take the requirements seriously, and ensure they are qualified, their team will suffer by not being allowed to practice or having games canceled until the coach is qualified.
You may check on the status of each of your coaches by going to admin.vyi.org and looking at the report entitled "House Coach Applications" , All. This will list for you the names of every coach who has completed an application for your league and the status of their progress. This same data, plus the status of the Building Director Schedule (not done until teams are assigned, close to November 15) is available at the reports entitled "Coach" and "Asst. Coach", but these reports are based on having all of your coaches assigned a team and being listed in "Team Contacts".
ANYONE you list under "Team Contacts" must be fully qualified to coach. If they are not, that team will not be allowed to practice or play games until the coach is fully qualified.
