Blog
Fan behavior
-Thursday, October 4, 2018
As parent behavior has gotten worse over the years in general, leagues have tried many things to curb that behavior. The CPYBL is no different. Thankfully parent issues in Batavia have been very minimal over the years, but that can't be said for other places.
With that the CPYBL, the league that our 2nd graders and above play in, have created a new rule.
If you are suspended as a parent, your child is also suspended.
This was discussed at length at a league meeting. I honestly spoke against it at length, but after a vote of the communities I was one of just a couple no votes. I am against a child being suspended due to a parent being out of line, but rules are rules and this will be enforced.
As the league president said, "Nobody has ever been kicked out for cheering too loudly."
- Bad referees are not an excuse for bad behavior.
- A physical game is not an excuse for bad behavior.
- There is no excuse for bad behavior.
"But somebody is going to get hurt"... I'm going to be honest here, I've seen my share of poorly officiated games. I can think of one where I thought there was a safety issue and this was 7th graders who moved a bit faster than our players.
NEVER... EVER... approach an official. Not for "good job," not for "you suck." Both could get you and your child suspended for two games. I can't stress this enough.
If an official or gym worker tells you to do something, do it. That is not the time to argue.
If you feel you can't control your emotion and/or anger, then get up and leave the gym immediately.
A future email will discuss conflict resolution and what you should do.
So I sent out a lot of emails tonight letting people know when the player evaluations will take place. Still a few more I need to notify, so if you didn't get it.. hold tight.
We are doing evaluations for the following grades (2B, 3B, 4B, 5G and 6B). All others do not require an evaluation to form teams. Due to the massive amounts of kids at most of these, the gym is closed to parents and siblings. It becomes a bit of a mess otherwise. NOBODY gets cut in this, everybody is on a rec team. This just helps coaches balance out the teams.
Our K1 teams are formed by me. I get a player ranking from you and then divide the talent as even as possible. Most years, I get it pretty close. Last year, not so much. So new this year, after week two I may trade a player or two to fix an imbalance. Please keep that in mind!
Regarding request for certain teams, coaches, or with other players. This is never guaranteed or implied to be met. The coaches form the teams via a draft. I am usually minimally involved, but sometimes I do have to get involved a bit to help iron out differences. The coaches are made aware of most request, but they are not always honored for various reasons. I walk the walk on this one, while siblings are put on the same team when requested... I am leaving my two 2nd graders up to the coaches to draft. If it means two different teams, that is what it means.
Finally regarding the "extra" teams we are looking to form for 3rd grade teams and above when it makes sense, if more than 10 kids show interest we have a tryout and it is an unfortunate thing but kids may be cut from that. If the interest is 8-10 kids, it is left more up to the coach on what next steps we need (tryout or just roll with it).
I'm a bit of an over communicator, I can own that. But there are places you can go to get the latest updates.
- Email. First and foremost I use email to communicate. Add me as a contact on your email provider so I don't end up in the junk folder. Yahoo is terrible for this (as a side note, as a tech guy.. seriously, get off of Yahoo.. gmail, Outlook, anything but Yahoo). By adding me as a contact this should lower that.
- Facebook. We have a group for basketball. It is protected, you need to answer the questions asked when you ask to join.
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/bcrlbasketball/
- Facebook is overall a very poor place for communication. They use algorithms and such to determine when you see updates. You can fix this by following the step in this post to get a Facebook notification when a post happens.
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/bcrlbasketball/permalink/926873747462147/
There are the two primary spots I put communication. I don't always do both (sometimes I'll send an email and not post it on FB and sometimes I'll post on FB and not send an email).
Finally I am posting all of these emails on our website.
Parents,
First off, thank you for signing up for BCRL basketball. You have options and I appreciate you choosing us.
I'm going to be sending many emails over the next month. Please take the time to read them as you get them as I'm going to go over a few things about the season and try and answer any common questions I get. There are changes every year, and this year is no different. This will be one of the longest emails you get if I can discipline myself to keep it short 😊 This is the first year I've done this, but as we've grown as an organization we need to transition a bit in how we operate and understand. Counting our K1 teams, we should have over 40 teams this year. Eight years ago we had 11.
In this email I want to introduce myself to you and give you some tips on being able to communicate with me when needed. Most of you have some idea who I am, but we already have 30 new players this year and I expect that number to go up a bit more.
My name is Clarence Klopfstein, this is my 8th year running BCRL basketball. I've been on the board of BCRL for most of that time and coached baseball a few years before that. Unknown to many, I do not work for Batavia schools. I am just like you in that I have a full time job.
I'm going to apologize now. I use to be able to know most people by name. Now, not so much. So please don't be offended when I ask your name and your childs name. Even if I should know you.. I'm terrible at names and details like that.
My wife and I have 8 children. Two are away in college, the third you will see at the middle school most Saturdays running the clock and monitoring the gym for me. He's a senior at Batavia high school. Been doing work for BCRL for years so he's a good source to ask a question if you have one. Our 8th grader does play school ball, so a few nights a week we are at his games. Then we have our four younger sons. They all play BCRL basketball, draft hasn't happen yet so I'm not sure how many teams they will be split up on. We are also likely going to put one of them in to youth wrestling this year. The point here? We are busy. We are many times missing a game that one of our children is in. Heck.. there are times we both miss a game of one of our children. So please understand that there are times I'm just being dad and would like to watch them play.
I communicate primarily through email. If you approach me I will likely tell you to email me whatever you talked to me about. Failure to send that email will likely result in me forgetting whatever you need from me. My Saturdays are super long and by time I get home, I'm crashing into bed.
I hate texting. I type 70 words a minute on my PC. If you text me, you can pretty much guarantee I read it... what you can't guarantee is that I'll remember that it is there and act on it. I'm terrible at it, honestly.
I hate phone calls. What would be a 2 minute email becomes a 10 minute conversation. Start with email, we can talk if needed.
In case of emergency.. call me.
513-319-8867