Welcome to the FCBL for another season of fun and excitement.
We are in our 3rd year, and experiencing very healthy growth. (We have over 200 teams now, covering virtually every community in Fairfield County. Our website had over 100,000 hits last season).
Thank you in advance for your contribution to ensuring that a couple of thousand kids have a great experience this winter.
I am Doug Scott, your 5G Division Director for this season. Please note my contact info is listed under the “Contacts” tab on the home page of FCBLhoops.org.
Here’s what we need to accomplish over the next few weeks in order to get the 5G league off to a solid start:
1. Review your team management’s contact information that is on the league website. -Go to Team Contacts tab on the website’s home page, scroll down to where your team is listed. Click on the names to see the email addresses on record. Check for errors and omissions. Email me any changes that are required.
The more, the merrier! I.e., we would like to have as many names, phone numbers and email addresses as possible listed for your team. The more email addresses, the more people from your team will be in the loop from receiving instructional emails from us. So if you want to add more names for an Asst Coach or Team Mom, etc., please email me that info. The more phone numbers that we get from you, the more likely others will be able to track you down with a timely call re a snowout or other last second developments.
2. Review your team’s seeding in A or B Division. This is laid out in the Team Contacts tab info as well. These seedings are basically my educated guess as to where each team should play for REGULAR SEASON purposes. I am open to feedback and discussion on these seedings if you concur or disagree.
In general, we Division Directors tend to honor an “ambitious” team’s desire to move up a level above where we think they belong. Conversely, we tend to deny a “sandbagging” team’s desire to drop down. If a seeding is in serious dispute, we will go with the consensus of all the coaches in the grade.
Note: Your Regular Season League Games are not intended to be 100% of your games. At our November 8th Scheduling Meeting, after we schedule our League Games, there will be time and opportunity provided for everyone to schedule additional NonLeague games. This is where people can satisfy their desire, if any, to play teams that are outside of their Division. E.g., an ambitious B team will schedule some A opponents, and an A team that is looking for opportunities to get its subs some heavy minutes will schedule some B teams.
Note: We generally reconfigure the Divisional seedings for our year end tourneys in order to compensate for our seeding “errors” during the Regular Season. So if you go undefeated in B Division for the Regular Season you are most likely going to be in the A tourney, and if you went winless in the A Regular Season, you will probably be dropped down into the B tourney.
Given our 5G A and B numbers as they stand, I am intending each team to play each divisional opponent twice during the season to determine our Regular Season standings and champion (The kids get a big trophy for any Regular Season Championships and any Tourney Championship).
Preparation for our Scheduling Meeting
We will meet at Bedford Middle School (directions are under Courts tab on the home page) on Tuesday, November 8th at 7:30pm.
Each team needs to send a representative to the Scheduling Meeting
That representative will need to bring the following:
1. A team roster, minimum of nine players. Please review Rules/Player Eligibility tab on the home page to make sure all players meet the age and residency requirements described there.
2. Copies of birth certificates (and Grade Exception forms, as necessary) for each player on the roster. These will be reviewed and returned to you prior to the scheduling process.
3. At least nine Home Game time slots (between November 17 and March 4) in which to schedule Regular Season League games. (The home team arranges and pays the refs and scorekeeper). Your opponents are expecting these to be predominantly Friday, Saturday and Sunday dates.
Please do not schedule any NonLeague games prior our Scheduling Meeting. We need your maximum flexibility in order to squeeze all of our League Games in as the first priority.
4. League website familiarity. We have had the successful growth in our league of widely disparate types of basketball programs mainly because we really push our Team Managements to use and refer to the FCBLhoops.org website heavily. It is the only efficient way for us to get so many on the same wavelength. You will need at least one person per team that makes themselves familiar with this website (Make sure that person has an email address listed in your Team Contacts).
At a minimum, you will need someone that is capable of entering your team’s scores after each game. There is an “How to” re this on the home page.
Your team is basically set up having its own set of webpages. Go and click on Team in the upper portion of the home page
Go to League and scroll down to find your Division
Go to Team and scroll down to find your team
I recommend that you save this page to “favorites” and spread the word of this page to your team members.
I will provide you with a Team Password that allows you to enter information here. Email me when you are ready to start using this password.
In addition to needing to access the Results tab here in order to input your scores, most teams use these pages for the following reasons:
Schedule: This page will list all of your League Games (and your NonLeague Games if you provide them). One of our most popular software features is here: If you click onto the Court that is embedded in the game on the Schedule, a printable/emailable set of directions to that gym pops up for you.
Standings: Both your League and Overall records are updated as you input the scores.
Bulletin: This is another place where team management contact info is listed (for calling your opponents to routinely confirm a game that’s on the Schedule or to track them down re an emergency like a game cancellation). You also can leave your team Bulletins here. Some people create a Bulletin with their teams Roster and phone numbers, so to aid in car pooling arrangements, etc.
One other note: During our League’s Tournament Championship Weekend, we hold Skill Contests for each grade. Each team will send their best player at that skill to compete for a huge “Best in the County” trophy. Last year in 5G, the three skill categories were Free Throw Shooter, Speed Dribble (a race dribbling through the “suicide” lines pattern, using the left hand going in one direction and the right hand going in the opposite direction), and a “Knockout” game . So encourage your kids to practice those skills over the next four months.
Again, thanks again for your ground work that makes this all work.
