BAYS Primer

BAYS Primer for Coaches

Welcome to playing in BAYS. Here are just a couple of suggestions about working with a BAYS travel team that you might find useful.

Navigating the BAYS website:

Head coaches and up to two assistant coaches are listed in BAYS. We use the Manager slot to add the second assistant coach, but there is no access diffences between the manager role and the assistant coach role. It is just what BAYS calls it. 

New coaches should receive an email from BAYS with their login information, but if not, just enter the email that you use on the WYS site for coaching here: BAYS Login and use the Reset Password function to gain access. Passwords will be set up by you during your first login. 

You are responsible for having correct contact information for you and your team on the BAYs website. You can update or correct your own contact information by going to the Login tab on the BAYS site. Make sure the email and phone are ones you can be easily reached on, especially during the weekends when most games are played.

Your BAYS Division Director will be in contact directly, and they will ask you to review the BAYS Coach Responsibilities

When the schedule comes out in each preseason, assigned coaches may receiving emails titled:  * BAYS * Game Change Notification. These are generated when Westwood or another town assigns the BAYS game a time and field. They may be confusing, especially if the time doesn’t change but it was just the field that was assigned. Times may also change, so you have to read it carefully.

Logging into BAYS before looking at your section allows you to see the emails of your opposing coaches in clear and to mail them from your system directly instead of using some convoluted BAYS emailer.

To find your team, Click on the link in the My BAYS->Coach/Manager->My Teams menu. Or go to our full team list and then find your team.

BAYS Teams and Standings Pages for Westwood

You will see your schedule there. At the beginning of the season, home and away assignments are correct but times may not be finalized. If there is a FIELD listed next to a time, then you can consider that a confirmed game time. If there is NOT a field listed, then the time listed is still a default. Westwood does not pre-assign fields, so all Westwood times are listed as the default to begin the season and there will be lots of updates.

Next, to see your section with all of your opposing coach information, scroll up on your team page and you will see your Section assignment number in dark blue that you can click on. Now you will be able to see a list of your opposing coaches. You can click on the small blue envelope next to their names to open a DIRECT email to them in your own email client. This allows you to get their direct email addresses. On that section page you will also be able to see your Section Captain and Division Director after they have been assigned.

There are a couple of communications and action steps that should happen during the season:

To Start the season:

• Confirm your assigned practice time with your team

• Send out season email to your opposing coaches (see example below)

• Figure out and assign Treats/Captain duties to your team if desired. There is an assignment function in TeamSnap if you want to use that feature.

• Request that everyone keep you informed, via TeamSnap, if they will miss a practice or a game, as WYS requires you to provide specific player attendance information on the end of season evaluation form.

• Game Schedules do change, but you should get a notice from BAYS when something is updated.

  1. 1. 1. • • Send your team a link to your BAYS team page. (see above) but let them know if they do not see a field listed then the game time is NOT considered final. Encourage them to get the field directions here. Tell them to subscribe to the dynamic team calendar on BAYS that will push out automatic schedule updates directly to their personal calendar by using the red Sync to Calendar button on the team schedule page.

             • To update TeamSnap once the Westwood games have posted, follow the instructions HERE. The page tells Coaches how to download their BAYS game schedule and then Upload that file into TeamSnap to automatically create their game schedule events. This is NOT dynamic like the synched calendar subscription, but it is useful.

           • Official Rosters

             • Once approved by the league, your official team roster will be linked as a pdf on your My Teams page and you can download it from there to print your paper copies. Electronic versions are not accepted at game time.

             • Guest Players: If you know that you do not have enough players to field a team you may follow the BAYS Guest Player Policy to have players from teams placed in the same or a lower section than your team, play in your game. You must secure the roster of the team where the guest player is coming from to present paper copies to the referee, so this is not a day of decision. Speak to your WYS Grade Group Coordinator beforehand who can help you.

Weekly during the season:

• If you are the home coach, confirm game time and field with your opponent by Wednesday. If you are away, hopefully the home coach will send you some type of confirmation as well, but if not, YOU should reach out.

  1. 1. 1. • • • BAYS sends out an Upcoming Game Details notification email three days before every scheduled game.

• With your team, confirm this week’s practice time which may change due to conflicts, orange/treats (captains) and game time (recommend folks arrive 30 minutes before the games start which will give you a little extra practice time!) you may want to resend link to away fields from BAYS. Ask to be notified if anyone can’t make it to the game.  

• For all games: Bring two paper copies of your official roster to each game to hand to the ref. The ref will keep one and should hand you back the opposing team's roster. Crossoff any players not in attendance and update any jersey numbers that are incorrect. Write the Game ID# on the top of the rosters for each game week. This is useful to the league should a ref or coach be asked to send back in a game roster to verify who was at the game. This happens sometimes after some incident occurs or there is a question on player eligibility. Always have your player medical information sheet with the team as well. 

• ALL coaches on the team sidelines (limit of three total coaches including adults and HS Coaches) must WEAR a current Mass Youth Soccer Credential lanyard at least throughout the game. You do not need to be printed on the roster to be on the sidelines, you just need to wear a valid Mass Youth credential.

• There is a required pre-game sportsmanship announcement that must be read at each BAYS game by a representative of the home team. Click here for the process and statement: https://bays.org/content/pre-game-sportsmanship-statement 

• Report your game score (both home and away games) to your Section Captain by no later than Sunday night. To find your Section Captain, just login to BAYS and navigate to your team page. Click on the Section Number in blue listed near the top of your team page. Once you click on that, you will see your Standings page and your Section Captain will be listed at the top. You should be able to just click on the envelope symbol next to the Section Captain's name to email directly if you are logged in. The weekly score report email should just say something like what is below. Avoid superlatives like "we crushed Medfield...etc"
            On xxx date, the score of our game was:
              Westwood Wolverines 1
              Medfield Warriors 0

• Play your games! Westwood is charged a forfeit fine/late cancel for unplayed or even unreported games, plus the kids deserve all 10 games. You can ask the opposing coach and ref to play quarters instead of halves, if you don’t have any or only a few subs!

  1. 1. 1. • • • 5 players to start a 7v7 game

               • 6 players to start an 9v9 game, 

               • 7 players to start an 11v11 game. 

• Here is a link to a Game Rule Summary Chart listing some of the more important rules to be familiar with.

•  BAYS is strict about playing the games as scheduled. Those rules can be found here: Match Rule 8: Playing the Schedule

• If you need to reschedule a game, follow the Cancel/Make Up Game Procedures on the WYS website. Also remember to copy your BAYS Division Director (found on your Standings page) once a rescheduled game has been confirmed.

Here is an example intro letter to send to all the opposing coaches in your section prior to the first game, customize as you see fit. (all 7v7 fields are grass except for MP field; ).

------------------------------------------------

Hello Coaches in Div X Section Y:

I am Jane Smith, coach of the Westwood Wolverines, and I wanted to check in with you before the season.

Please note that if you don’t see a field listed next to a Westwood game time, then that game time is still the default, and we will be inputting final game information soon which may vary.

Directions to Westwood fields can be found on our website www.westwoodsoccer.org and clicking through the Field Locations and Directions link on the top left.

Please also note that Westwood has a strict NO DOGS policy on all of its fields and we request that this information be passed on to your team parents so that we avoid any issues at the games.

In case of bad weather, game status can also be found at the Weekend field status link on our homepage: www.westwoodsoccer.org. I will also communicate via email/text.

WHS Multi-Purpose and Flahive fields are turf so expect to play unless there is lightning, but all the other fields are grass and may close at times.

Hope this covers it all. Can you all please also confirm your game times and fields if possible, as we know NOT to assume that the listed times are correct? If BAYS is correct then no worries.

My cell phone is listed below in case you need to reach me for any reason.

Looking forward to seeing all of you. Have a great season.

-- 

Jane Smith

Coach Westwood Wolverines Div X Section Y

C: 617-xxx-xxx

www.westwoodsoccer.org