- May 2, 2012
- 1,142
- 1,366
It is extremely rare for us to simply turn someone away who tries out. If anyone does get "cut", it usually only college-aged and above athletes where we only have Worlds-level teams and the competition for spots in insanely competitive. I can't remember the last time we just didn't have a team for someone 18 or younger.
We do everything we can to find a fit for athletes that want to join mid-season. We can usually make it work, but the options are sometimes more limited than if they had gone through the actual tryout or done a private tryout prior to team announcements. At that point, it is mostly about finding a place where they will help one of the teams that has already been formed. Their placement depends on where we have a need.
The "if you don't put my athlete where she wants, then we will leave and go somewhere else" threat doesn't typically work on us. I understand the athlete/parent perspective on that, but if we simply let people hand-pick their own teams or roles in a stunt group, then the whole system basically falls apart. We will try to sit down with the parent and/or athlete and try to explain why we placed them on a particular team, but it is incredibly rare that that conversation leads to the roster change that parent wants.
Out of curiosity, roughly how many Open-aged athletes do you not have a spot for each year? And of those how many do classes etc. even if they didn't make a team?