NVCLL Family:
In the coming days All-Star teams for our 9's, 10's, 11's and 12's will be announced. This is always a bittersweet time as every year someone feels slighted and gets upset that their child was not selected to play on a team. In order to be as transparent as possible here is how the process works at the baseball level:
The NVCLL Board of Directors forms a committee made up of board members who have no children involved in the age groups listed. The committee meets and goes over the list of any person who has volunteered to manage any of the teams. The committee then chooses a manager if more than one person has volunteered and that is the person who is selected; only a person who has passed a background check and been a manager or coach this past year is eligible to be selected.
The players are selected as follows:
All managers at each competitive level (Majors/Minors/Internationals) are given a ballot with each player broken down by team and age group. Each manager is then asked to vote for the top 15 players (Based on talent and sportsmanship as they will represent our league across the county) for each age group only within their respective division of play. The managers cannot vote for any of their own players. Each manager is then asked to rate the players going from highest to lowest. The player who receives the highest ranking receives 15 points, followed by the next player who receives 14 points and so on until the final player of the top 15 receives 1 point. The ballots are then sent to the committee who tally the numbers and present a list of the top 9 players. Those players are then selected to play on the team. The manager of the team is then presented with the 6 next highest vote getters and is given the opportunity to select the final 3 players who will comprise the team, managers base their choices for a variety of reasons; extra catcher, extra pitcher, fast runner etc...Those players are then chosen to represent the NVC all-star team. The parents are then notified and must agree that their child will be available for the tournaments which start in late June and can run through mid to late July. If a family chooses not to play for any reason, then the manager makes a choice off of the remaining players who were within the top 15 until we have a fully formed team, players are allowed to be brought up a level for example an 11 year old can play up with the 12's if he/she is deemed capable of playing at that level, but a player is not allowed by Little League rules to play down a level.
We believe this is the fairest most balanced system available to us. There are no politics involved, no one can push or select any of their own players everyone is treated equally by all managers within their respective division and age bracket. The system we use may not be perfect but we believe it's fair and that is what we sought. If you have any questions or concerns you can always contact me or any board member.
I hope when the teams are announced and begin play we as a baseball community will unite and support our kids as we have done in the past. We have had a most difficult year this year with weather related issues and the rescheduling of games. We always want our kids to play the maximum amount of games but this year with the playoffs and the All-Star season on the near horizon it will be impossible to make up all of our postponements. We’ve had a pretty competitive season across the board and we should have some exciting playoff games coming along with our second annual Coaches/Old-timers softball matchup, Challenger night is Friday June 7th and we’ll continue to look for ways to get our kids more training and more time on the field. Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Darrel Caneiro
NVCLL President