AAU Girls' Basketball

How do I form a team?

How do I form a team?
The four most important considerations in forming a team are developing a philosophy for your team, finding committed players, finding a coach and finding a practice facility. The first step must be developing a philosophy. What is the motivation behind forming this team? Will it be a participation team where everyone gets equal playing time or a performance team where playing time must be earned? The answers to these questions must be decided before attempting to find a coach and players. If the coach and the players don't buy into the philosophy of the team it will eventually lead to problems and hard feelings.

The philosophy of the team can help to determine how you will go about finding players. Will you run area wide or local tryouts? Will there be open tryouts or by invitation only? Are tryouts necessary or do we just want to keep the school team together for an additional season? Will you charge a fee for participation in tryouts to cover the cost of AAU membership, facility rental, etc.? If you have adopted a performance philosophy you will probably want to go with open tryouts. On the other hand, a participation philosophy can lend itself to either local tryouts or just keeping the school team together and no tryouts. You will also need to decide how many players you will have on your teams' roster. Cost, which is addressed below, may have some impact on that decision.

I’ve formed my team, what's next?
Once you have developed a philosophy, found enough committed players, a coach willing to abide by your philosophy and a practice facility; there are some administrative details that need to be worked out. The coach should go to www.aausports.org and click on HANDBOOKS and then Girls' Basketball. The coach and team administrator need to familiarize themselves with AAU Girls' Basketball rules. If there are still questions after reading through the Handbook, the AAU staff is always available to help coaches, administrators and parents to understand the process. You need to contact your local AAU office for playing rules for any local invitational tournaments, qualifiers and association championships; player eligibility; tournament dates and locations; tournament application procedures; AAU player, coach and club memberships; AAU insurance programs; forfeit policies; age eligibility and much more. Call 1-800-228-4872 (AAU-4USA) for help or go to www.aaugirlsbasketball.org and click on local contacts/events to find your contact information for the AAU Girls’ Basketball Chair in your Association.

What are the costs associated with AAU basketball?
Another administrative task that must be taken care of is setting the cost for player participation. Things to take into account when setting the price per player include: Player memberships ($12 or $14 per player); Coaches memberships ($14 or $16 per coach); AAU club membership ($30, $60 or $300); invitational tournament entry fees ($180-$350 per tournament); state qualifier entry fee ($150-$300); association championship entry fee ($200-$300); player uniforms; coaches attire (optional); first aid kit (suggested) and basketballs (Rawlings 28.5” 10 panel ball is the Official AAU Girls’ Basketball and may be purchased online: www.aausports.org), ball bag, whistles and score book. You can also go online at www.aausports.org and do your individual and club memberships with a credit card. Remember to print out your membership information at the end so that you have them available for proof of membership at AAU sanctioned events. All the entry fees listed for tournaments are approximates; you need to speak to your local contacts for exact fees. You also will need to decide whether or not the coach will be paid and if so how much.

This is also a good time for developing ideas on how you might raise money.

EXAMPLES:

Get a sponsor.
Have different fundraisers throughout the year (the AAU has a great fund-raiser through ESPN the Magazine)
Host a tournament to raise money for your team.

Add all of your costs together, subtract any money you may have received from the examples above and divide by the number of players committed to playing for your team. This will tell you what per/player cost will be. Once the members of team have been finalized and you have a plan and budget put together you should have a team meeting with all the players and their parents. The team should decide on how many tournaments the team would be attending, the coach should review the information about AAU participation and the final fees should be set. This meeting will help to ensure that everyone will be on the same page for the season. If possible, the team should pick the tournaments the team wants to register for, fill out their registrations and get the season set. The more organized your team is and the more information the parents and players have, the better the AAU experience will be for everyone involved. The AAU staff is always available to answer questions about AAU Girls’ Basketball or any of the other 32 AAU programs.

How can I find out if tournaments I am interested in are AAU Sanctioned?
Go to www.aausports.org and click on EVENT CALENDAR (located on the list on the left side of the Home Page) and then click on local events.

How do I find a team for a young lady to play on?
If you just don't want to form a team, then you'll have to try and find a team. Try talking to anybody who plays or has a daughter who plays AAU basketball so that you can get in contact with her coach. If that coach cannot accommodate you then ask if he/she knows of other coaches looking for players or hosting try-outs. You can always contact your local AAU Girls Basketball Chair at www.aaugirlsbasketball.org to see if there are any leads available on tryouts or coaches looking for players.

Sports for all, Forever,

Eddie Clinton
Senior Sports Manager
Girls', Women's Basketball & Golf
407-828-3162
eddie@aausports.org

Kristy Sampson
Sports Manager
Girls', Women's Basketball & Golf
407-828-3165
kristy@aausports.org