Coach Information

Coaches, along with parents/guardians and referees, are the people that support AYSO players the most. This page contains some resources that coaches might find useful. We encourage coaches to look at the Parent Information and Referee Information pages also. For information specific to the current season, see the current season's page (available as a tab at the top of this page).

Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act

Tennessee passed the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act in April 2015. Coaches must submit a signed Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act form to coach a AYSO soccer team. We will have these forms available to sign during registration events, but you can also find the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act form online for you to print out, sign, and bring with you to a registration event or the coaches meeting.

Heading Restrictions (New for Fall 2016)

In 2016, the United States Soccer Federation (USSF, of which AYSO is a part) placed restrictions on heading the ball by youth players to avoid the potential for concussion. In AYSO, the restrictions are:

For players in the U12 and younger divisions, heading in games and practices is prohibited. If a player heads the ball during a game, an indirect free kick from the location of the header is given to the opposing team.
For players in the U14 and older divisions, heading is allowed in games and practices. However, for U14 players, heading practice is limited to 30 minutes per week.

Note that these restrictions are not optional -- AYSO coaches and referees must abide by them.

Fields

See our Fields Information page for information about game and practice fields, including how to get notified when fields are closed.

U8 University

For one of their two practices each week, the U8 teams in our region use a "university” style practice where all U8 players and coaches come together to train in a single session. The players are split into groups regardless of their assigned teams, and the players progress through activities according to a curriculum based on the key principles identified for U8 by AYSO. This university-style practice gives players a chance to get familiar with their peers and all of the U8 coaches, and for coaches to support and teach each other good coaching techniques. To facilitate this approach for our U8 coaches (many of whom may be new to coaching), we have put together a U8 University manual that provides a week-by-week plan for the U8 university practices.

Offside Law

In our Region, players in divisions U10 and older use the offside law. The offside law is one of the most frequently misunderstood law of the game. (The rules of soccer are called laws.) This offside law video is a good explanation of the offside law, but note that as of June 2016 the restart location changed to be the location where the offside infraction occurred. For more information, take a look at Law 11 of the Laws of the Game. Also, consider taking the referee certification course to better understand all soccer laws!

Useful Forms

Lineup Card

A coach should provide a completed AYSO team lineup card to the referee before each game. Print this card using your computer's two-per-page format (you get the front and back on the same sheet). If your printer can do double-sided printing, using this setting should give you two complete cards, front and back, per sheet.

Safety Forms

In AYSO, we strive to make soccer fun, fair, and safe for everyone involved. Our region's safety principles describe things that must/may (and must/may not) be worn during games or practices. We also have a brief safety principles summary chart.

If an incident does occur, a coach must fill out the safety incident form, and email it to our Safety Director at safety.director@aysoregion390.org (or print it and deliver it to him or her). If a coach submits this form, he or she must also have the player's parent or guardian sign this participation release form before the player can participate in practice or a game, and this release form must also be provided to the region's Safety Director.

Oak Ridge City Field Release Form

To use city fields, each team must turn in an Oak Ridge city field release form signed by a parent/guardian for each player. Turn in signed release forms to the desk at the Oak Ridge Civic Center.

Request for City Permit for Make-Up Game

Use this form to request a permit to use a field for a make-up game. If at all possible, play your game as originally scheduled, even if it means you have to play short-handed or swap players, due to the difficulties involved in rescheduling games. Note that as the requesting coach it is your responsibility to:

Before you submit the form, agree with your opposing coach about rescheduling, and the rescheduled date/time/location
notify the coaches of the teams whose practice you are displacing with your game
notify the referees who were scheduled to work the original game
find referees to work your requested game

Also, note that you must have city approval before your rescheduled game, and it takes some time for that approval. Do not expect to submit a permit request one day and play your rescheduled game the next. To be safe, submit your request at least one week before the requested date.

Player Rating Form

Our region's registrar uses player ratings from this season's coaches to balance the teams next season. To download a blank player rating form, scroll to the bottom of this page, find the line that says 'Player-Rating-blank.xls,' and click on the downward-pointing arrow at the right side of that line. Follow the instructions on the form to fill it out, and email it (or better yet, print it to a PDF file and email the PDF) to registrar@aysoregion390.org.