As coach of a High School bowling team, it is your responsibility to choose a team after completion of team tryouts. Although the format of your team’s tryout is your choice, we offer several suggestions to help you field a competitive team.

Basic Guidelines:

¨ Keep it simple. The format should be easy to understand for the athletes.

¨ Keep it objective

¨ Tryouts should take place over a several day period so you can better evaluate the

intangibles that make up the student athlete.

Intangibles to look for in a student athlete:

¨ Positive attitude – Look for students who handle adversity well

¨ Team player – look for students who encourage others and handle other student’s

mistakes in a positive manner. It is also important to look for players who take instructions well and can put the goals of the team above their personal goals.

¨ Sportsmanship – Obviously you want students who have competitive instincts but it is

important that the students represent themselves and their school well even when they perform poorly.

Suggested Tryout Formats:

· It is important to have a format that minimizes subjectivity. It is recommended that you use a 4 game tryout tournament using total pins to determine the top 8 bowlers for each team. An alternative format is to use a 3-4 game tournament to select 6 or 7 players for your team with the last slot or two being the coaches choice based on a combination of bowling scores and player intangibles.

Suggestions for releasing players:

Releasing players from your squad is probably the toughest job of the coach. Anytime a player is cut; they are disappointed and hurt. How you handle this is critical. Keep in mind a player who does not make the team, if properly motivated, may become a top player. The following are a few suggestions for releasing players.

ü Meet with each player individually and inform them of your decision of whether or not they made the team. Don’t post a list of who made the team.

ü Thank the student for trying out and encourage them to try again next year.

ü Give the student a written evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses. This does not need to be lengthy just a bullet pointed list.