Eden Prairie Baseball Association  

Team Manager Resources

Baseball Team Manager Guide

What does a Travel Team Manager do? 


Team Managers support a team and the Head Coach by taking the lead on scheduling and communications as well as assisting with travel arrangements and tournament logistics. Many Team Managers like to go above and beyond by arranging food for players, team gatherings, coach gifts, and other fun extras to enhance the experience, but these are not required.

Essential tasks for EPBA Travel Team Managers:

  • Manage player and coach documents
  • Assist HC with parent communication and scheduling
  • Create a team chat for communicating with families
  • Manage hotels for travel tourneys
  • Manage tournament logistics
  • Manage team fund

At Start of Season:

Essential tasks:

  • Ensure you’re set up as the Team Manager in the “staff” section of the team on epbaseball.com. Work with your Head Coach and the EPBA Travel Directors/EPBA Registrar if this isn’t already done
  • Set up a team chat using the SportsEngine chat feature (which should already be set up for you), or a 3rd party team chat app like GroupMe or TeamSnap
  • Gather team documents
  • Player birth certificates (you’ll need to ask for these from each family). Maintain confidentiality of these documents!
  • Coaching certificates (concussion and safe sport, one of each from each coach) 
  • Team roster 
  • Team Manager keeps a hard copy of all of the above 
  • Consider a 3-ring-binder with plastic sleeves 
  • Create a second set of hard copies for the coach bag or electronic versions in a shared drive like Google as backup. Remember that these documents are confidential and should be handled with extreme care!
  • Establish a team fund
  • Decide with the Head Coach how much to ask for from each family. Typical amount is $100-$150 per family, but may be more depending on plans for the season (extra out of town tournaments, plan to purchase extra team clothing/gear, etc). Team funds normally cover extras like player food in between tournament games, end of year coach gifts, state tournament fees, etc)
  • Tip: using Venmo is a great way to create a record of who has contributed
  • Get player names/numbers embroidered on player and coach hats
  • Lettering by Karla- [email protected]
  • 952-288-3534
  • $8 for embroidered name
  • $7 for embroidered number

Extra/helpful (but non-essential) tasks:

  • Assist Head Coach in scheduling and planning a beginning of the season parent meeting
  • Ask families for dates that they have conflicts so the coaches can plan league games (league game scheduling occurs in early April). This may include school band/choir performances, end of the school year activities, school trips, and graduation celebrations
  • Send a note to the Tournament Directors for the hosting associations of the tournaments that you are scheduled for so you can receive any important tournament info (Head Coaches are typically already included, but it never hurts to verify).
  • Request team access to the MBL website through your Head Coach. They can enter you in as a Team Manager so you will be able to help enter and manage player information.  
  • Add players and their numbers to the MBL website (make sure to check if player is already existing with MBL)
  • Coordinate a schedule for families to rotate responsibility for providing a cooler of water/gatorade during tournament games
  • Set up the team in GameChanger and ensure there is a parent or two who will keep score and possibly stream games
  • Choose 1 “Game Changer Manager.” Manager should not be a coach. This person will be primarily responsible for tracking game action and admitting fans to the team. 
  • GC Assistant Manager. Assistant Manager should not be a coach. This person will serve as a backup for game tracking and may also be responsible for streaming. 
  • A note about streaming - it’s suggested to have a device that can be used during the entire game for streaming and that device should probably have unlimited data (I learned this the hard way!). A backup battery is also helpful
  • Head Coach. You may want to use the Head Coach’s email address and a password that you are comfortable sharing with Assistant Coaches, if you want to give them access.
  • [email protected]. We need access for a variety of reasons :-)
  • Training (HIGHLY RECOMMEND FOR ALL SCORERS)
  • How to score baseball on GC
  • Cheat sheets for scorers 
  • Livestreaming (not required)


Ongoing

Essential tasks:

  • Send out a weekly schedule/reminder of the upcoming week’s activities with times, locations, jersey colors, etc. 
  • Assist Head Coach with making any schedule adjustments in the SportsEngine team calendar

 

Tournaments (scheduled)

Essential tasks:

  • As far in advance as possible, determine if there are any players that are unable to attend all or part of a tournament weekend. 
  • If substitute players will be needed, work with HC to identify subs and complete required paperwork
  • A few days in advance, communicate with families around timing, travel arrangements (if necessary), locations, where to find tournament schedules and standings, and any other logistical information
  • Tournament schedules are typically not released until a week or so before the tournament begins
  • Most tournaments use TourneyMachine (now SportsEngine Tourney) to communicate schedules and standings, though some will use their own website
  • Complete any tournament pre-tasks like entering a team roster (this info may go to the Head Coach only - be sure to check)
  • Check in at the tournament HQ, no later than 30-60 minutes before the first game
  • Present team documents (birth certificates and coach certifications)
  • Gather and relay any other team information from the hosting association
  • During the tournament, don’t assume everyone is paying attention to the tournament schedule, Stay informed about bracket games, rainouts, and location changes and update everyone via the team chat
  • If the team qualifies for a state tournament, be sure to collect the bid information from the hosting association

Extra/helpful (but non-essential) tasks:

  • Arrange for food for players between games
  • Arrange for group meals if traveling
  • Door signs if traveling
  • Swag bags for players (use team fund or have each family contribute something to the bag)

 

State Tournaments

Essential tasks:

  • All of the essential tasks from the scheduled tournaments plus…
  • Completing the player paperwork for MYAS tournament
  • Using team funds (or collecting additional funds) to cover state tournament fees
  • Reserving hotel space for state tournament

 

End of Season

Extra/helpful (but non-essential) tasks:

  • Coordinate an End-of-season celebration: bowling, saints game, twins game, parents v kids whiffle ball 
  • Collect money/use team fund for coaches gifts and purchase gifts and cards. Have kids sign cards.

 

General fun (totally non-essential):

  • DQ run for dilly bars on hot days 
  • Donuts when they make it out of pool play and compete on Sundays 
  • Coordinate a team meal/celebration after a big win! 
  • Big league chew 
  • Eye black
  • Meet at a park to play a pickup game

 

Consider making a first aid kit for the coaches bag: 

  • Ice packs 
  • Wipes 
  • Band aids

 

Thank you to Anna Anderson for helping make this guide!

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