| What's Involved in Boys Travel? |
Boys Travel is for 5th through 8th Graders, who want a richer basketball experience than is available in the Boys In-House Program.
Players for the Travel teams are selected by a tryout process that occurs in mid to late September.
Practices begin in late September or early October. Each team practices twice per week, with each practice generally one and a half hours long.
Rather than league play, Travel Teams play in weekend tournaments. Generally in each tournament a team will play 3 games. |
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| What About 4th Graders? |
RYBA will sponsor a 4th grade travel team, if there is enough interest, and if someone, generally a parent, steps up to organize the team. Once it is clear that there is enough interest, the Travel Director will help arrange tryouts and the formation of the team. The Travel Director will take the responsibility for scheduling tournaments and games for the team.
During seasons when there is no 4th grade travel team, 4th graders may try out for the 5th grade travel team. Our bias, however, is not to exclude a 5th grader who is skilled enough to play travel to make room for a 4th grader. |
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| The General Timing of Things |
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Registration: Available from August 1st until the Saturday after Labor Day[2011 -- Sept 10].
Tryouts: A two day event held on a weekend in mid to late September [2011 -- Sept 17-18].
Practices: Practices are twice a week, beginning in late September or early October, and running through mid March [start:2011 --Sept 26; end: 2012--Mar 11].
Tournaments (Games): All games are played in tournaments. The first tournament is in early November [2011 -- Nov 5-6]. The RYBA fund-raising tournament is in late February [2012 -- Feb 24-26]. The final tournament of the season is in mid March.[2012 -- Mar 10-11] |
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| Registration |
You can register your son either on-line, or at our one-day Walk-in Registration event.
Online registration is available from the Online Documents page available from the Main Menu in the left hand column of this page. Online registration is open from August 1st until the Saturday after Labor Day [2011 -- Sept 10].
Our Walk-in Registration is also held on the Saturday after Labor Day at Roseville City Hall [2011 -- Sept 10, 9am-12:30pm]. The walk-in registration event also serves as an Open House, so that anyone with questions can meet and have a discussion with RYBA Directors. |
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| Tryouts |
Tryouts for the travel teams are a two day event held at Roseville Area High School in mid to late September [2011 -- Sept 17-18]. All boys trying out are expected to be at both days of tryouts. If you must miss one of the days, you must notify the Boys Travel Director, prior to tryouts.
On Saturday, each grade level will have a 15 minute warm-up period followed by an hour and a quarter tryout. We've shifted to afternoon and evening tryouts on Saturday to avoid conflicts with RAYFA football games and NSSA soccer tryouts. Here is the official Schedule of Boys Travel Tryout Times for the upcoming 2011-12 season.
On Sunday, we combine grade levels and compress the time down to a one hour tryout for each combined group.
Uniform sizing will take place on Saturdy for boys new to the Travel Program and returning players who have outgrown their uniform.
To keep the Tryouts as fair as possible, we generally ask the High School Varsity Basketball Coach to coordinate the tryout, and use outside evaluators unaffiliated with RYBA to grade the boys trying out. Any boy who tries out but is not placed on a travel team, will be automatically enrolled in the appropriate Boys In-House program. |
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| Practices |
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Each team practices twice a week, and each practice will be around an hour and a half long. Teams will generally practice once on either Monday or Tuesday evening and then again on Wednesday or Thursday evenings. We make every effort to work around Wednesday night religion.
Practices begin in late September or early October [2011 -- Sept 26], and end in mid March [2012 -- Mar 8].
Practices are scheduled to work around football and soccer practices until late October, and then the schedules shift to permanent times for the remainder of the season. |
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| Tournaments |
Games for travel teams are played as weekend tournaments, each tournament usually consisting of 3 games.
Teams will play in 9 to 12 tournaments during the season, depending upon the grade level. This equates to approximately a 30 to 35 game season.
The sites for travel tournaments are at various locations around the Twin Cities metro area. Three of the tournaments are in Roseville, including the Winter Classic which RYBA hosts in late February. We play in one "overnight" tournament. See the sections immediately following for information on the RYBA tournament and the overnight tournament.
Our first tournament is the Coon Rapids Tournament [2011 -- Nov 5-6], and our final tournament is the MYAS State Tournament [2012 -- March 10-11].
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| Roseville Winter Classic - Our Fundraising Tournament |
RYBA is able to reduce the cost of travel basketball by hosting a fund-raising tournament each year. The money raised from this tournament allows us to charge travel players only half of what the costs would be without this tournament.
This season's Roseville Winter Classic [2012 -- Feb 24-26], will be our 22nd consecutive year of hosting. Around 150 teams will participate in our tournament.
The tournament is planned and teams are recruited to it by volunteer directors who work on it during most of the off-season.
To have enough help to be able to run the tournament itself, we require RYBA travel families to work a number of shifts at the tournament. Usually this amounts to 8 to 10 hours per family. And since this tournament reduces each players cost of participation by around $400, that's not a bad hourly rate!
We also require each family to submit a deposit check of $100 at the beginning of the season. Once a family has satisfied their work obligation, their check will be destroyed.
If a family is unable to satisfy their work requirement, then their check will be cashed and the funds will be used to hire help to cover their work slots. |
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| St Cloud Overnight Tournament |
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Each season, we schedule one out-of-town tournament. For the last number of years, we have participated in the St Cloud Tournament, and will again this year [2011 -- Dec 3-5].
Most families choose to stay over in St Cloud during the tournament. RYBA arranges for a block of rooms to be held at the St Cloud Holiday Inn - "The Holidome". The Holiday Inn will only accept reservations that include both Friday and Saturday night stays.
Because the kids have so much fun staying at this hotel, most families book rooms here even though, for some, the Friday night reservation is not an absolute necessity. Families are free to manage expenses by booking at other hotels in the St Cloud area on their own. A few families commute on a daily basis to further cut expenses.
The purpose of this weekend is to give the boys a special fun experience with each other, so we encourage families, who are financially able, to stay at the Holidome. To reserve a room from our block of rooms, you must mail or fax your reservation so that it arrives by November 14th. The Holidome Reservation Form lists the rooms available and their respective costs. |
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| Costs of Participating in Travel Basketball |
Travel basketball fees are divided into two parts.
(1) The Registration Fee [2011-12 -- $140] is identical for all RYBA programs (with the exception of our 1st-2nd Grade program).
(2) The Travel Fee, generally in the area of $300, [2011-12 -- $280 for 5th grade and up; $155 for 4th grade] covers the additional expenses inherent in the travel program - tournament fees, additional gym time for practices, etc.
So the total up-front cost of Travel Basketball is about $400, $300 for 4th graders. There are also "subtle" costs associated with participating in the travel program. In the interest of full disclosure, and to help families make their participation decision, we've prepared a document that elaborates the Total Cost of Travel Basketball. If the costs dissuade you, please see the section on Financial Aid. RYBA is committed to working with families so that no qualified player is excluded from Travel Basketball strictly on the basis of their family’s inability to afford the program. |
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| Financial Aid |
We don't want the cost of travel basketball to drive families away and to deprive boys of the chance to participate. So in addition to mitigating the cost by holding our fund-raising tournament, RYBA also makes financial aid available to families where needed.
Families, who are on their school's free or reduced price lunch program, automatically qualify for having the registration fee waived. Families who need further help, should contact the Boys Travel Director to arrange for additional financial aid.
To begin the Finacial Aid process, download the 2011-12 Financial Aid Application, and follow the instructions on the form |
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| Coach Selection |
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Head Coaches for boys travel teams are selected by a four member panel. To be considered for a head coaching position, all candidates must submit an application. Interviews are conducted where valuable to the process. Head coaches select their own assistant coaches. All coaches, head and assistants, are required to submit a Background Check Authorization Form.
As a general guideline, we look to use volunteer coaches, generally dads or moms, in the 6th grade and lower, and to recruit paid coaches in the 7th and 8th grades. Our policy excludes Board members and family members from receiving compensation for coaching a team.
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| Communication |
We recognize that families with children in sports are very busy and juggling time. RYBA Boys Travel attempts to be as considerate as we can, by making full and timely information available to families to aid their planning and decision making.
Contact Lists: Family address, phone and email information is provided from the registration data to the appropriate coach for each travel player. Either the coach or a parent volunteer can make a contact list from this data so that team families can communicate with each other for car pooling, etc.
Website: The website is our main medium for communication. On the Main Menu in the left hand column, there are a few menu items worth highlighting for travel families. (Click the page name below to visit that page.)
Teams: Each team has it's own page on the website. In season, this page will contain:
(1) contact information for your coaches;
(2) a roster of the players (first name and last initial only);
(3) a link to your tournament calendar;
(4) a link to your practice calendar;
(5) a link back to this page for reference;
On your first visit to your team page, it is advisable to bookmark the page for future reference.
Gyms/Directions: Our database has location information, driving directions, and a map for over 100 basketball venues. If a boys’ travel team is scheduled into a venue not in our database, we update the database to keep it current.
Contact Info: This page contains contact information for the Boys Travel Director as well as other Board members and volunteer leaders of RYBA.
Tournament Info Pages: While we know which weekends we will play tournaments and generally where they will be, we don't know the details of game times and specific locations until about 10 days before tournaments. Within 24 hours of the detailed tournament information becoming available, we publish a tournament information page on our website and communicate a link to that page to travel families via an email chain. The tournament info page will have brackets (game times) for each team, as well as a link to the Gym/Directions page for each game site.
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| Playing Time Policy for Travel Basketball |
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Our playing time policy tries to achieve the balance between development and competition. We give each coach discretion over a portion of playing time as both a motivational and competitive tool.
Every Travel player should receive, as minimum playing time, an amount equal to half the minutes available in the first 3/4s of the game, which calculates to 10.5 minutes per 28 minute game. The remaining time is distributed at the coach’s discretion.
For 5th grade and younger travel teams, players should receive equal playing time for games through January 1st, as the team forms and the coaches get to know the players.
If a player is shorted playing time in a game, the coach should look for opportunities to make up the shorted time as soon as possible.
A travel coach may, at their discretion, restrict playing time in the event that a player cannot or does not meet reasonable requirements for attending and participating in practices. This restriction should be communicated to parents or guardians prior to the game.
A parent may request a reduction in minimum playing time to benefit or meet the needs of their child. This decision is revocable at any time by the parent. |
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| Code of Conduct |
| Because of the competitive and fast paced nature of basketball, it is not difficult to get swept up in the emotion of the game - especially when our own children are competing. Still, RYBA expects coaches, players and fans to moderate their enthusiasm with sportsmanship. Everyone involved with travel basketball is expected to know and comply with RYBA's Code of Conduct. |
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