Tryout Process for Long Island Youth Soccer: Steps 3 and 4- Locating a Tryout

At this point, if you have spoken with your child’s coach and still believe the best decision is to find a new team for your child, you will want to familiarize yourself with the following options.  Sometimes, if your child is very skilled, you may have been approached by a different coach or you may have friends on a different team and you know what team for your child.  If you know you want a new team, but you are not sure where you want your child to play, the next steps are for you.  It has taken me years of coaching, asking questions, meeting other parents and coaches, and playing around on the internet to begin to figure out all of the different resources and options available on Long Island for things related to Youth Soccer. 

3.            Ask your current soccer coach if he/she has suggestions for another suitable team or tryout

I genuinely hope that the coach you are leaving is a reasonable person who puts the needs of the kids first.  If the coach is a jerk and chooses to take the news badly, thank him/her for their time and walk away knowing you made the right choice.   The hope is that the coach appreciates your honesty and is willing to offer some suggestions to you as to teams that may offer you and your soccer player what you are looking for.  As a coach, we know other coaches and will usually have a less biased assessment of your child’s soccer skill level.  We also know what clubs and teams are good places to be and which are poor sports or teach tactics and soccer beliefs that are not always in the best interest of the kids.  We also may be able to reach out to the coach of the team you want to try out for and let the coach know the player is interested.  It never hurts to ask the coach for an honest opinion and suggestion about a team that may better meet your players soccer wants and needs.  In the Club where I coach, I work closely with the other coaches in my age group and the age group above and we have referred players to each other over the years in an effort to make sure that players in our Club remain in our club and that all teams are appropriately rostered. Unfortunately, not all Long Island Youth Soccer Clubs or coaches work together this way.

4.            Search local resources for teams having tryouts and open practices; sites available for Long Island Youth Soccer and surrounding areas include:  www.backofthenet.com and www.lijsoccer.com

Now that you have gotten through the hard part (yes, I know prior to this series you thought the hard part was the actual tryout), it is time to decide what team you and your youth soccer player want to play with.  If the prior coach was able to offer suggestions, contact those coaches first and ask for information on the team and tryouts.  If you need to find what options are available to your child, there are two options available to parent and players in Long Island Youth Soccer. 

The first is BOTN (Back of the Net) at www.backofthenet.com and Long Island Youth soccer tryouts have been listed at this site for years.  You do not need to have a login to access the different tryouts and can go and locate teams in your age group that are hosting tryouts and usually coach contact information will be available.  In addition to the tryout posts, this website has a very active message board and you may be able to get information about teams by reading through the posts relevant to your child’s age group.  **WARNING anyone can post in the message boards and all personal opinions posted in the message boards should be take with a grain of salt.  All tryout information is verified by the moderator and can be trusted as valid**.  As of last year, this site has been allowing posts for teams in all the area leagues.  If a team posts a tryout on this board they cannot post anywhere else.

This year, Long Island Junior Soccer League, one of the larger youth soccer leagues on Long Island, has added a Tryout Board to their website www.lijsoccer.com.  This site only has tryouts for teams in the Long Island Junior soccer league and it appears you need to create a login to access the site.

I hope your head is not spinning too much.  There is a lot of information here, but good information.  I believe you will find that when you put these suggestions into practice it is not as complex as it sounds.  As always, please ask questions, share experiences, or comment below.  Tomorrow we will take a look at the last 3 steps in the process.