A few minutes read · tryout season edition
It is tryout season. Perhaps your child is auditioning for a new team, or re-auditioning for their current one. Either way, you are likely overwhelmed. Social media posts, club newsletters, parent group chats, and town halls are coming at you from every direction. Everyone has an opinion. If you are early in your child’s athletic journey, all of it can feel genuinely disorienting.
My son is heading into his senior year. This is his last official youth soccer tryout. Standing here, I can tell you clearly what I would have done differently and what I would have asked differently from the very beginning.
It all comes down to development. Specifically, there are three things every parent should be asking every club, coach, and organization they are considering. And if you are running one of those clubs, pay attention. You should have real, specific answers to all of this.
“If the organization does not formalize a development process, they are not really a competitive program. They are giving you a service, almost like a recreational league.”
01 Ask for the data
When your child goes to school, they receive a report card. You know where they stand and you can track their progress over time. There is absolutely no reason their athletic development should be treated any differently.
If your child is spending significant time at practice and games, and you are spending significant money and energy supporting their participation, then learning is happening. Or it should be. That learning needs to be documented.
Ask the club directly:
What does your formal development process look like?
How often do they provide structured, written feedback?
A casual word from a coach on the sideline does not qualify. A single parent-coach meeting once a year does not qualify. You need to know, specifically and on a regular basis, where your child stands in the coaching staff’s assessment.
One additional point worth raising: the evaluation should ideally involve more than one coach, particularly in larger programs. A single perspective, however experienced, will always carry blind spots.
02 Ask about the video
Technology has made this straightforward. Recording games is no longer expensive or complicated. Any club that is serious about competitive development should treat it as a standard component of what they offer, not an optional add-on.
Having access to video, however, is not sufficient. The more important question is what the club actually does with it.
Coaches should be providing genuine analysis. That means sitting down with teams, particularly older players, to walk through footage, highlight patterns, and point out what to look for. At a minimum, it means written breakdowns. Something that demonstrates thoughtful engagement with the material and shows that the video is being used as a teaching tool rather than simply archived.
Ask the club directly:
Do you provide game video?
How do your coaches use it as part of the development process?
03 Ask about playing time and do not apologize for it
This is the area I feel most strongly about. It is also the one I wish I had addressed more directly earlier in the process.
Playing time should not function as a reward. It should not be something children must compete against their teammates to earn. In a paid competitive program, your child has already demonstrated their worth by earning a spot at tryouts, attending practice, and showing up consistently. The notion that they must further earn the right to actually play is fundamentally backwards.
Development cannot occur on the bench. A scrimmage in practice and live game experience are not equivalent. Players need genuine minutes under real competitive pressure to apply what they have learned and to understand how their skills hold up in actual game situations. That is not a privilege. That is the purpose of the program.
This does not mean every child should be a starter. It means every child should receive adequate playing time. Enough to grow, enough to be assessed, and enough to make the investment meaningful.
“If your child is not receiving adequate playing time, that is not a motivation problem. It is a question of whether this is the right program for them.”
Ask every program you are considering:
What is your policy on playing time
How do you ensure all players receive meaningful minutes throughout the season?
To every club, coach, and organizational leader reading this: these are not unreasonable questions. They are basic expectations from parents who are investing real time, real money, and real trust in your program. If you cannot answer them clearly and specifically, that is worth reflecting on.
And to every parent navigating tryout season: you are permitted to ask these questions. You are expected to. Development does not happen by accident. It must be built into the structure of the program. Demand that structure. Your child’s growth depends on it.
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