The Team Parent is the primary communication link between parents and coaches. The AYSO Team Parent is a pivotal part of every team. They are the coach’s assistant, cheerleader and traffic director all in one. These are things you will already be doing if your child is on the team, so take it one more step and help the entire team operate more smoothly!

    Every coach needs help arranging snacks and drinks for games, making calls or sending emails/texts when rain makes practice impractical or games are canceled, and keeping an energetic team in line on the sidelines. You’re making a difference for a whole team - a team that includes your child. It’s a great way to make your child’s team a family experience!

    Another important role a Team Parent can play is the unofficial Kids Zone representative at every game. Kids Zone is one of the ways AYSO makes sure all its players and volunteers are having fun. The program encourages spectators to use good language, show good sportsmanship in attitude and behavior, and create an enjoyable day for every player.

Steps to becoming a Team Parent:
     1. Talk to your coach; give your offer to support the team as the Team Parent
     2. Complete and submit an AYSO Volunteer application by logging back in to Blue Sombrero at your child's registration. Click on the left side at volunteer and select the position. 
     3. Complete the safe haven online course: http://www.aysotraining.org
     4. Provide a copy of your Safe Haven completion to your coach

Team Information:
    When speaking to any member of the Board it is important that you know the following information about your team: team division (i.e.: U10G or U19B), team number, team name, coach’s name. This will help ensure that your information is distributed to the appropriate board member for resolution.

Develop a team list consisting of players’ names, telephone numbers and parents’ names. This information can be obtained from the coach. Share the team roster with parents at the parents meeting for accuracy verification. (Provide any changes to the coach immediately). Once the uniform number, game schedule and snack schedule have been determined provide a final copy to the player’s parents with all of the information included. Creating a spreadsheet is the easiest way to handle.

Sign up at https://band.us/home for a FREE team site!

     For the Fall season, its really easy to sign up and build a site through Band. This app can be your best friend. The site enables you to update a calendar to post games, practices and team parties and will send auto-generated emails to parents. You can set up the snack list schedule and associate it with games, post pictures, videos and much more. Take some time to use this program and it will help you immensely in your role as team parent.

From time to time you may be asked to provide telephone support by the coach. This could include, but may not be limited to: weather cancellations, schedule changes, and general information. Another good way to communicate with your team parents is through email. You might want to include an email address for each player on your roster.  If you intend to use email as your main source of communication, be sure to ask parents at the parent meeting to check their email regularly and to respond with a simple statement that they received the email.

      Encourage parents to take time to log on to the team’s BAND site and establish an account if they do not already have one.  Once the team parent completes the site an email will be sent to parents with the link for logging in.  All parents should do this so that they are kept informed and reminders for games and practices will pop up on their app and notify them if they have their notifications on.