The week before the youth soccer season starts, Jim Grattan, director of the Rockford Park and Recreation Fall Soccer Program, has players signed up to fill 88 soccer teams. Jim is short at least 20 head coaches, and he hasn’t even started counting up assistant coaches yet. He’s panicked. He had hoped that many of last year’s coaches would return, but he didn’t start contacting them until two months before the first practice. He found that many former coaches had already made other commitments for the season, and he’s left scrambling to fill the empty spots.

Does this scenario sound familiar? Perhaps you’ve been in a similar situation or feared that you wouldn’t be able to find enough qualified coaches to lead your teams. To avoid finding yourself in a tough spot at the beginning of a season, start thinking about your strategy for recruiting coaches.