"Hug Your Manager, Today!" | Thunder Soccer Club of Howard County

"Hug Your Manager, Today!"

Originally written by Mike Hasty Fall 2002 (modified slightly by TSC in 2009)

It requires a lot of administrative work to keep each team organized and running smoothly.  The manager position requires tons of behind the scenes effort, individual care and organizational skills.  Most people have no idea how much value their manager brings to the success of a team. In many cases even the coach is unaware of the work they accomplish just to facilitate the opportunity for our children to play. While on the outside things appear to run pretty smoothly, many, many times this is no small accomplishment.

Each year, managers perform the dreaded registration process. This means collecting pictures, printing cards and registration forms for each player, obtaining signatures, managing the collection of notarized medical release forms, obtaining proof of age documents dropping of and picking up at the registrars house and a plethora of other tasks just to allow a team to be prepared to play each year.

Of course this is only the beginning as they need to register each team official, apply for tournaments, register the teams, coordinate
accommodations and the list continues for the various registration tasks. In addition, they are responsible for preparing budgets, ordering uniforms, providing directions and schedules, reporting scores, obtaining permissions to travel, state cup registration and draw, obtaining volunteers for their team and club functions, tryouts, attending meetings and maintaining open communication with each individual and the coach on the team. Then there are directions, phone trees, practice coordination, handouts, team meetings,
rainouts, reschedules, and the list truly goes on and on.

Sometimes this means driving to tournaments with all the paperwork the night before to register the team. Sometimes they are the ear that gets bent when things go awry, or coaching issues surface, or when playing time is an issue, or when a  team isn’t winning.  They mend many fences during a year, intercept and deal with many issues, and deal with many, many people.  Yet they still somehow have the time and energy to cheer their team on as the consummate cheerleader at every game.

While each team member deals with their own individual schedule, the manager has to deal with each family’s schedule, overlaid with the requirements placed on them by the club, MSYSA, leagues and tournaments. It doesn’t take much imagination to recognize the havoc that one parent late with requested information or fees can do to the managers ability to get the job done.

So, parents please, please help your manager by volunteering, being on time with requested information and do try and follow the directions for completing information; the rework is staggering. And by the way, give your manager a BIG hug, or at least a thank you. It will be appreciated and just might give them the added lift to get through one more season so you aren’t asked to do it