Youth Survey Results!

Thank you so much to those of you who responded to the survey and taking time out of your day!!   

Part 1 – Positive Comments

Q38 - What are your favorite parts of the Legends experience?

 A few of the reasons why you play Little Legends are:

Good coaching and more time to practice outside of the usual winter basketball season

No games on weekend. Practice and games are always on time

The ability to play alongside my friends in a competitive environment has been very rewarding

A solid competitive league that is well administered

Clinics.  By far the clinics.

I enjoyed my son's run playing Legends.  He's now a freshman and the additional seasons of Legends helped him develop into a county player who will make his HS freshman team. 

Getting to play in the off season, the quality of the referees and the quality of the coaching

It offers a venue to play when summer league is over

Allowed my child to develop skills in a low pressure atmosphere.

Part 2 - Recommendations We Can Address

Q39 – Are there any improvements you can suggest to Little Legends?

Many felt the gym space (elementary schools) were too small for the 7th and 8th grade division

• So do we!!!! Little Legends would love to run all upper level grade games at middle schools.  Unfortunately, the county is in charge of court distribution and there are many programs requesting after school space.  Nevertheless, each season we are requesting bigger courts and additional space as our league grows and working with the county to try to fulfill this. 

• Little Legends will focus on scheduling games at middle schools when available for upper level divisions

   

To have a fixed schedule at beginning of the season.

• Little Legends has always released weekly schedules for games.  This was done to provide flexibility for possible conflicts, particularly for a coach who is unavailable or a coach that knows of a team-wide school conflict or other reason their team may have a particular day conflict.  It also allows us to schedule games are results come in and to better align opponents.  (After the games are released, coaches then go and reserve a practice slot around their game day.  Game days can rotate days, usually falling on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.  By rotating game days, it gives players who may have another weekly obligation the ability to make some of the games during the season ).   
  Little Legends can appreciate the need for advanced scheduling notifications.  For this upcoming season, we will be working on releasing multiple weeks of the game schedules (2 to 3 weeks at a time) so that parents can better manage/plan their schedules.  By doing this, we will lose some of the flexibility we had to work around any conflicts as well as positioning more appropriate teams to play each other.  We are hoping the more advance scheduling offsets this.

Make the teams more even.  Now, with people able to join as a team you get teams who have been together for years playing against drafted teams and the difference is huge.  

• Little Legends allows players to sign up as a full team as well as put in a request to play on the same team with a buddy or two, which I believe we always accommodate!! This can help kids feel more comfortable starting in the league and also help their parents with carpooling (which is definitely helpful!!!)  If we have 3 kids that want to play on the same team and have similar skill levels the team they are placed on could receive 3 high ranked players or vice versa…

  Little Legends will be looking at the draft process to see if we can have a more even disbursement of skills for the draft teams.  Also, if registration numbers warrant, we are looking into separating the upper level 7^th/8^th division that will in turn help in the team vs draft disparity (if other division numbers allow it – they too would be split to an individual grade) As a caveat, by releasing multiple game weeks at a time, we lose the ability to manually analyze the weekly results and pinning appropriate teams against each other.

Communication.  Emails and texts were very confusing

• We will be working on improving communication both from the league and the coaches.  The league will give the coaches the team emails and express the importance of direct communication.  League emails will be sent to clarify any unusual scenarios and especially the details of the playoffs. 

•  

Refereeing standards should be better and more consistent.

 We had similar comments to this one about the refs.  The first thing to understand is that NO ONE LIKES REFS!  We work hard on getting solid refs, and actually, all our refs are certified to some level!  Some are always going to be more experienced than others, and we continue to work with them to be more consistent and call games with the same concepts as we run the league.  Please be patient with them, and feel free to ask them (in a respectful manner) questions about a particular call or no-call.  They should all be happy to do that as long as you don't abuse it by asking questions too frequently.  Please also note THEY WILL MISS THINGS AND MAKE MISTAKES!  For anyone who has never reffed, it is EXTREMELY difficult, and even the best refs make mistakes or miss calls.  They are also responsible for watching 10 players at the same time, and keep a lid on high flying emotions.  We’re also in the planning process of developing a rating system, where good refs will get bonuses for high evaluations, and weaker refs will be provided feedback to improve.  For now, use the “Legends Feedback” link under the “Basketball Home” tab on the main site.

Part 3– Costs

It is just about right, should not increase the price, otherwise people will go to county sport

Part 4 – Other Comments

Q40 - Is there anything else you would like Legends to know?

Keep up the great work. Didn't know what to expect when we started...the experience has exceeded our expectations.

This is a great league and clearly a lot of moving parts.  We have been very impressed with the high level of quality you maintain.

Keep finding goods coaches who keep the kids challenged and interested

Poor coaching led to a very, very bad experience

• We all know that coaches can have different styles and temperaments.  These styles can’t always work with all kids.  Every season is a challenge to get parent volunteers to coach.  The best way to ensure a good experience from your perspective is to volunteer to coach or be an assistant.  

• There will be an email sent to coaches to remind them of their code of conduct as well as reinforcing substitution rules.