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WELCOME TO 2024 - WISHING YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
As a recipient of this email, you have been designated as a Parent Volunteer Coach and/or a Team Parent for our upcoming Next Level Flag Football season program coming to your community this January!
Before we jump in to the intentions of this email - we first want to THANK YOU for volunteering your time and efforts to support our program, our structure and most importantly, our Next Level participants!
While our approach is unique in that we employ local Student-Athletes to assist and mentor our Next Level teams throughout the season, we still rely on the stability and organization that many parents can provide to the program. We again thank you for these contributions and the respect you have for helping us create 'The Best Youth Sports Experience' for all of our participating athletes!
So why this email?
Well, we've got a lot of information to get out to our constituents ahead of the upcoming season. We also want to make sure that all of our season resources (playbooks, rulebooks, etc.) are accessible to our parent volunteer group as we move into January! The more you have now, the better prepared our teams can be as we kick-off the season over the next several weeks...
With that above, we've got a lot to cover, so LET'S GET IT!
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Offseason Email - Parent Volunteers | |
Featured Topics - Parent Volunteers | | | |
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Role/Expectations - Volunteer Coaches: | |
Over the years, we've found our footing with officially designating our Parent Volunteer Coaches as the 'General Managers' of their respective teams. This term is meant to establish a connection with your respective 'Head Coaches' (our student-athletes) while also having an understanding of your team participants. The one expectation we do not bestow upon our Student Coaches is to ask them to bring 'parental guidance' to our teams. As a result, the 'General Manager' designation is apt and fitting. More specifics on the expectations from the Next Level perspective:
- Assist & Guide our Student-Athletes as 'Head Coaches' - enable them and support their navigation of the season,
- Step in to assist on the parental needs of a team - offering guidance and support to all team participants,
- Be fair and respectful to all participants on your team - enabling equal playing time and access to development,
- Be diligent in player rotations (see NL Rulebook) and ensure that participants are put first - 'Kids First' organization!
- Maintain perspective at all times, even in the heat of competition, remembering who actually plays the games - it's our kids!
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Role/Expectations - Team Parents:
We've been fairly nondescript about what the Team Parent role has been over the years! Well, we really want to change that and create more of an element for our 'Off Field Operational' assistance. This is where our Team Parent role now has been established and will continued to develop. Key attributes and assistance from our Team Parents include the following:
- Schedule Updates/Weather Issues/General Coordination - when we need to change something, one voice to assist!
- Weekly Game Reports - did we get the final scoring correct (who won/lost), if there is conflict, we need some help,
- Conflict Resolution - often times, we have team level conflicts both on the field or off the field, Team Parents can assist our efforts to understand and help mitigate,
- Team Uniform Issues - these usually don't exist, but if they do, we can always use a helping hand!
- General 'Off-Field' Operations - Parties, celebrations, etc., these are great experiences for kids which we defer to our Team Parents!
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Season Communications - Next Level App
Our Next Level App continues to take shape and evolve into a great service tool for all of our Next Level Sports programs. As we rolled out the app for the 2023 seasons, we fell a bit short with timing and the development of our communications elements within the app. This season, we are a FULL GO!
The app has been updated to include full Team Messaging features as well as our simplified RSVP feature for weekly game events!
To get a jumpstart on the use of the Next Level App for our team messaging features, our Product Team has put together a few short instructional videos which you can review to help jumpstart your experience:
Of note - we are only supporting a native iOS app at this time. For Android phone users, you can always access the app via any browser at app.nextlevelsports.com or click here! All our features are accessible via the browser supported version.
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Team Data - Next Level App
As we head towards our season kick-off, we always get a great number of questions as to when our team data is uploaded/updated and of course when Student Coaches will be introduced/added to our team directories. During our TeamSnap days (its still a great tool for some, we just outgrew it), we were plagued by the breadth of our data and the ability to routinely update our team data in their app.
With our own app, we are now in full control of the flow of our team data and we can update the app data whenever we desire. As such, we are posting our round of team roster data approximately 10 days before our season kick off dates:
- January 7th Programs - Your data has been fully uploaded to the NL App,
- January 13th/14th Programs - Your data will be initially uploaded on Wednesday, January 3rd
- January 20th/21st Programs - Your data will be initially uploaded on Wednesday, January 10th
- January 28th Programs - Your data will be initially uploaded on Wednesday, January 17th
Once your specific location has been initially uploaded to the NL App, our Product team will be routinely updating any/all changes to all team rosters where there are updates. This cadence will occur periodically throughout the initial weeks of the season program.
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Parent Volunteer Training Schedule:
As communicated over the past weekend - we are inviting our Parent Volunteer Coaches and Team Parents to participate in a brief Zoom training call ahead of the season. The training calls should last about 45 minutes with a short Q&A after the call for any questions or points of clarification.
We encourage all teams to have at least one representative join one of our training calls. There is no need to attend more than one of the trainings as we will cover the same content during each of the scheduled calls below.
During the trainings, we will dive into specific details about the Parent Volunteer and Team Parent roles as well as our expectations of our Student Coaches and coordination points there. We will also cover some high level details about league and team communications through the Next Level App as well as a brief review of our Next Level Rulebook and essential elements that govern our league programs.
Parent Volunteer Training Session #1 - Thursday, Jan. 4th - 6:00 p.m. PST/8:00 p.m. CST
Parent Volunteer Training Session #2 - Friday, Jan. 5th - 6:00 p.m. PST/8:00 p.m. CST
Parent Volunteer Training Session #3 - Thursday, Jan. 11th - 6:00 p.m. PST/8:00 p.m. CST
Parent Volunteer Training Session #4 - Friday, Jan. 12th - 6:00 p.m. PST/8:00 p.m. CST
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Season Resources - Rulebooks & Playbooks | |
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We've got a bunch of additional season resources to keep you rolling through the upcoming days as we approach the season. Below, you'll find our supportive Rulebooks for both our core 5-on-5 program (Kinder - 6th/7th divisions) and our 7-on-7 program (7th, 7th/8th & 8th divisions). In addition, we've got a plethora of Playbooks attached below. Click on any of the highlighted links or images below to download each item as a PDF!
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Next Level Flag Football Rulebook - Just some light reading here! We've always tried to keep the rulebooks as 'light as possible' but yet it continues to grow. No significant changes to report from our 2023 season as we gear up for the 2024 season. To download and review the 2024 Rulebooks, hit the link here: Next Level 5-on-5 Rulebook & Next Level 7-on-7 Rulebook
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Offensive Playbook - 5-on-5 - Our standard Offensive Playbook for our 5-on-5 game format! If you aren't sure if you are participating in our 5-on-5 program, chances are pretty good that you are! This playbook supports all grade divisions from Kinder - 6th/7th grades. This playbook DOES NOT support our 7th, 7th/8th and 8th grade 7-on-7 programs (see below). This playbook is a great baseline to get all teams flowing to start the season. Of importance - the use of the Next Level Playbook is NOT REQUIRED, it is merely supplemental content should a team want to utilize some base play creation. Hit the link to download - Offensive Playbook - 5-on-5!
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Offensive Playbook - 7-on-7 - This playbook DOES support our 7th, 7th/8th and 8th grade 7-on-7 divisions. We add some complexity when we move up to this format, but again, these materials are there for guidance. There is enough here to help your team through an entire season, or grab a whiteboard and get creative! Download the Offensive Playbook - 7-on7!
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Defense & Drills Playbook - Yet another playbook - but this is a good one! As mentioned in some of our previous league communications, we split up our playbooks this season to make things a little more simple. This playbook is great for drill work - select a few drills (offensive or defensive) which can be introduced early in the season to help with flag pulling, defensive spacing or even mastering the route tree! Start off easy with a few drills, build it up during the season! Hit the link to download the Defense & Drill Playbook!
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It feels good to get all of that information out to our Parent Volunteers! You serve a critical role in assisting our program and we can't thank you enough for the support you provide throughout our seasons.
As we head into our final stages of preparation for the season, we will continue to communicate any/all updates to our season programs. Things have really taken shape over the last month and our team is excited to get the season underway. This is without a doubt the largest season launch we have had since Next Level formed back in 2012!
For those new to our programs this year - a special shout out to jumping in with us! We hope you have a great experience this season and beyond. To our 'veteran' parents, we hope your experience this season is even better than the last!
We hope to see many of you on our upcoming Parent Volunteer Training calls over the next few weeks!
On behalf of our entire team at Next Level Sports, wishing you and yours a Happy New Year and a great season ahead!
Lance Smith
Co-Founder/CEO
Next Level Sports
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If you need to access specific season information including your season schedule or otherwise, hit our overview page below to access your location: | | | | |
