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The purpose of this section is to answer common questions
that come up with concerning high school soccer. If you have
any questions that are not covered in this section then please
write to the district president at jbscram@aol.com
We will attempt to answer them as quickly as possible at this
site.
Recently we asked the OHSAA commisioners some questions that
covered the topics of what is allowed offseason and what is
not. We also asked them for some clarification on other related
issues. If you want to see the answers to these questions,
hit this link.
OHSAA responses.
Are the rules
interpretation meetings necessary ?
What is the organization of the coaches
association (GCSSCA and OSSCA) ?
What are the allowed contact days that
coaches can work with players ?
How do I become a member of the coaches
association ?
What are the guidelines for the All-Ohio
voting ?
How many Honorable Mention selections
do the teams get ?
How do we go about impeaching the president
of the association ?
Does the association sponsor indoor
leagues for high school teams ?
How can I get involved in the decision
making process of the association ?
What are the GCSSCA sponsored conferences
?
How can I schedule games for my team
?
How can obtain a copy of the Master
Schedule and the Cleveland Coaches Directory ?
What are the duties of the League Reps
?
What are the purposes of our dues ?
Is middle school or junior high school
soccer under the same rules as high school ?
YES. Without a doubt the head coach, an assistant coach,
or if you can talk him into it your athletic director must
attend the rules interpretation meeting to be eligible for
participation in the state tournament. There is a sign-in
procedure that the state uses to take attendance. The meeting
is held in late July/early August in several sites around
the state. You can look under the notes and dates section
at our home page to find the exact dates and times for this
years meetings. You are not required to attend the meeting
closest to you or your school. You may attend any of the dozen
of so sites throughout the state. At the end of August there
is a make up meeting at OHSAA headquarters in Columbus. For
the local meetings we hold a coaches association meeting (GCSSCA)
after the state meeting. While the coaches are not required
to stay for this meeting, there is information given out at
this time that the coaches need to know concerning the voting
in October, the banquet, and other matters. Whether the coach
attends the coaches general meeting at this time or not, they
are still responsible for this information.
The Greater Cleveland Scholastic Soccer Coaches Association
(GCSSCA) is a volunteer organization comprised of high school
soccer coaches. The list of the officers and how to contact
them via e-mail is available at our home page. The officers
are voted in for a 2 year term adn we are always looking for
help. There are committees that can always use help. Feel
free to contact us if you want to pitch in.
The Ohio Scholastic Soccer Coaches Association (OSSCA) is
run in a similar fashion to the local association. Both associations
are always looking for coaches to get involved. Let an officer
know f you have an interest in helping out in any way.
FOR SOME OTHER INSIGHT INTO THIS ISSUE CHECK OUT THE OHSAA
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS POSED TO IT. THE LINK IS AT THE TOP
OF THIS PAGE.
This is a complicated question and one of the most frequently
asked. The answer varies on the time of the year.
The official start date (August 4, 2003) to your last tournament
game. In other words the all soccer season.
There are no restriction on coach-player training, except
for those imposed by your school district. You are limited
to 4 scrimmages and 16 regular season games. Any individual
player is limited to playing 32 halves in a year during a
regular season and no more than 3 per day. This means that
a player can play both halves of a JV game and then they would
be available to play in one half of a varsity game. Once a
player steps on the field it is considered a half played.
Remember that no player can participate in more than 32 halves
in a regular season.
The date of your last tournament game to 28 days later.
This is the OHSAA imposed no contact period. This time will
vary from team to team due to the fact that teams are eliminated
from the state tournament at different dates. The rule is
that there is to be no contact between the coaches and the
players concerning soccer. This doesn't include awards banquet
and all-star games for seniors.
After the 28 day period is over until May 31.
At this time you are not allowed to work with your team in
a soccer training setting. Whether it is indoor or outdoor
soccer does not matter. It also doesn't matter if it is a
regular school team like in an indoor soccer league or an
individual player with his coach like in a club setting. Coaches
may watch their players play but they can't coach them or
train them at this time. You may condition your team during
this time (running, weight lifting, etc.) The team may play
indoor soccer together as in a high school indoor league.
However, when the teams go outside, there is a limit of no
more than 5 players that participated in the fall from any
individual school. Most club teams are aware of this rule
and make sure to abide by it, but they are under no rules
or have no responsibility to adhere to it. The penalty for
this is that those players can be declared ineligible for
the fall season either in whole or part of the season. The
coach of the high school team may not coach a club team until
June 1 that any of his high school players are a part of.
A coach may run open field sessions at any time. Once again,
the coach is not allowed to run a training session, but can
be there to open up the facility, for safety reasons, etc.
June 1 to July 31.
This is the time where the coaches may work with their players
for 10 days. The 10 days can be staggered or consecutive and
used at any time in this 2 month period. This includes summer
league games, training sessions, tournaments, and camps. Physical
conditioning is not to be counted in these days. If the team
plays in a summer league game and the coach is not there or
is just there as a spectator and doesn't coach them, then
that does not count as a day. If you condition your team for
a session and finish it up with a supervised scrimmage or
drills then that would count as one of your 10 days. If you
finish it up with an open field situation, then it doesn't
count as one of the 10 days. Like above, this is for the high
school coaches and certified volunteers approved by the local
school board working with the team. If you hire a coach to
run a camp, and you are not present or are there only in a
supervisory capacity, then this doesn't count as one of the
days. The situation where the varsity coach takes the team
for 10 days followed by the JV coach for 10 days etc. is not
allowed. It is 10 days total, no matter what school coach
takes the team.
August 1 to the first official start date of the season
(August 4, 2003).
There is to be no soccer training during this time. This
includes games or practices. Conditioning during this time
is not allowed but as mentioned earlier, it must be physical
training with no drills, scrimmages, or tactics being taught.
Some coaches state that a simple way to adhere to this rule
is not to have a ball involved.
Needless to say a lot of the adherence of the OHSAA rules
are up to the coach to have the integrity to follow. We expect
our players to follow the guidelines that we set down for
our team so we as coaches and role models should play by the
rules.
To become a member, you have to do the following. 1. You
must register with the association. Send your name, address,
school, phone number, team name and level that you caoch to
one of the officers of the association, though it will be
more efficient if you send it to the president or the treasurer.
You can check our home page to find the e-mail addresses of
them, or check out the directory of coaches which you can
also access through our home page. In addition, an invoice
will be sent to every Athletic Director in the NE Ohio area
served by our association. 2. You must also pay the dues to
be a member of the association. The cost of dues is currently
$ 105 for a head coach and $ 15 for an assistant coach. The
dues for the head coach include local, state and National
dues. A coach MUST join all three through our association
to be considered a member. Being a member of the GCSSCA entitles
you to a master schedule, a coaches directory, a vote in association
matters, the ability to have players from the school be named
to All-Cleveland and All-Ohio teams, academic and coaching
awards, and an opportunity to be invited to our banquet and
for seniors to play in our All-Star games. The $ 15 for the
assistant coach is for local dues. There are additional dues
if they wish to join the state or the National associations.
If an assistant coach joins the association their school gets
an extra honorable mention selection.
You must be a member of the GCSSCA with dues paid. You must
attend the voting meeting which is held at the end of October.
Each coach must fill out an All-Ohio nomination form for all
playes that are being nominated for first team All-Cleveland
and make 50 copies of this form to pass out to all of the
coaches present. We will not make copies of these forms at
the meeting, you need to bring them with you. All selections
for first team, second team, and third team are done by a
vote of the coaches.
Every head coach who is a paid member of the association
is entitled to two honorable mention selections. For every
assistant coach who is a paid member of the local association
(GCSSCA) the team gets an additional mention selection. The
number of selections due to assistant coaches joining are
limited to two. Therefore, the total number of honorable mention
selections are capped at 4.
This is a simple thing to do. All you need is to get 3 signatures
from anyone on a handwritten petition. Membership in the association
is not a requirement.
No. Currently there is a large number of indoor facilities
and they all sponsor high school leagues. Any team that wishes
to play indoor will have no problem in finding a place to
play without the help of the association. There are several
tournaments that are geared to high school teams and in the
future they will be posted on the website.
Any coach that has a desire to get more involved in the association
is more than welcome. New ideas and enthusiasm are what will
keep our association progressing. Simply contact a member
of the associationand we will inform you of executive board
meeting.
The history behind the conferences are that in the beginning
of high school soccer in the area, few established athletic
conferences had enough schools in them that had soccer teams
to make it an official sport. These sponsored conferences
therefore sprang up to give these teams a conference championship
to shoot for. Over the years most of them died out because
as more schools added soccer the individual conferences would
add soccer to their list of official sports. For the most
part they are a bit outdated, but some schools still band
together to play in a GCSSCA sponsored conference. Since the
need for these GCSSCA sponsored conferences is waning, the
association will still sponsor new conferences only if the
schools are without a regular conference to play in. There
is a fee of $ 25 per team and the member teams in the conference
must supply their own league representative. The fees go for
conference plaques and certificates. They are invited to the
banquet and are afforded all of the other benefits that teams
in established conferences are.
Before every voting meeting each October, the coaches are
able to get together and complete their schedule for the following
season. While many coaches have most of their schedule done
before this meeting, there is still a lot of scheduling done
and many coaches wait until this meeting to do their preseason
schedule and to round out their JV and freshman schedules.
If you wait until after this meeting to do your schedule you
will find it dificult to fill your schedule.
To obtain a copy of the Master Schedule, you will have to
give us a copy of your schedule by June 15. While this the
deadline, we would appreciate it if you could get it to us
earlier. You need to be a paid member of the association.
You will obtain a copy of the master schedule in August at
the general meeting if you have submitted a copy to us. If
you don't supply us with a copy, then you will have to get
the master schedule onlinen at this website. The same guidelines
apply for the Cleveland Coaches Directory except that the
deadline is August 15 after the August general meetings. HOWEVER,
with the progression of the website we are considering posting
the schedule solely on the website. A decision has yet to
be made.
The league reps are a very important part of the association.
The main duties of the league rep is to coordiate the records
and the standings of the conference as well as the leading
scorers adn goalkeepers for the newspapers. With the growth
of the website the league reps are going to take on even a
more important role. The website will be used to include current
league standings, statistical leaders, and even feature stories
if the league rep is ambitious enough. At the end of the year
the league rep needs to make a copy of the All-League teams
for the Banquet program.
To be a member of the coaches association you are required
to join the local, state, and National coaching associations.
There is not an option here. You must join all three.
The local association performs the following services:
The dues help to subsidize the all-star games. We charge
admission but it doesn't cover all of the expenses such
as uniforms, programs, referees, etc..
We undergo a large bill for photocopying each year for
the banquet program and the all-star game program, as well
as the master schedule and the directory. The folders that
are handed out to all of the coaches entail a lot of photocopying
as well as the all-state nominee packets for the state voting
meeting in October.
Travel expenses for attending state meetings.
Postage.
Maintenance of this website.
Awards and trophies given out at the banquet.
For the most part they are. If you are referring to player
eligibility questions such as the 5 player rule and contact
times off-season, the rules for junior high school are the
same as high school. There are minor cosmetic differences
such as teh actual first start date, the number of contests
allowed, etc. Junior high soccer is considered to be interscholastic
soccer adn so all of the same rules apply.
Some schools districts (not many but a few) do not register
their junior high programs with the state, so they have
more leeway as far as having club players on their teams.
Question 1
What makes up a contact day ?
When coaching and/or instruction takes place other than
during the no contact period.
Question 2
Can open fields, open gym, take place during the school
year ?
YES, however no coaching or instruction can take place.
A coach is allowed to be there in a supervisory capacity.
Question 3
Can high school teams play in mini-ball or futsal tournaments
?
YES, however,coaches may not coach their own teams out
of season.
Question 4
Can the girls soccer coach, coach the boys team during
indoor soccer and vice versa ?
YES
Question 5
Some high school coaches coach club soccer indoors. Can
they still instruct if some of their players are on that
club team ?
NO
Question 6
During the summer, if a coach works with some of his/her
players in the morning then with another group later that
day, is that one contact day or two ?
This would count as one contact day.
Question 7
What actually can be done from August 1 to the first day
of official practice ?
Open fields and /or conditioning
Question 8
Can a high school team rent an indoor facility during the
winter and consider that an open gym ? If so, how does a
coach deal with charging for the facility ?
YES. It is a local decision on how to pay for the facility.
Again, no coaching or instruction may be done.
Question 9
Is there a certain number of days required by the OHSAA
that a try-out period must be before cuts are made ?
NO
Question 10
Does and indoor All-Star game count as one of the two All-Star
games that seniors can play in ?
NO
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