Rotation system for grades 3-6

Every year we get some questions about the rotation system from new coaches in these grades. We understand it can be a little confusing at first, but we hope to explain it better here.

The rotation that you set in week 2 is the rotation that the rest of your season will be based on. What we are most concerned with in this demonstration is player slots. Depending on your roster size it will either be slots 1 thru 7, 1 thru 8, or 1 thru 9. For our demonstration, we will work with 1 thru 8 player slots.

Using last year’s rotation sheet, which can be viewed here, we will be using Coach Horton’s team rotation as an example.

In week 2, Coach Horton’s rotation was:

slot 1 – Hunter #4
slot 2 – Evan #3
slot 3 – Devyn #5
slot 4 – Jaylen #6
slot 5 – Raphael #2
slot 6 – Miles #1
slot 7 – Jayden #7
slot 8 – Matthew #8

For that game, his four quarters would have looked like this:

First qtr. – Hunter, Evan, Devyn, Jaylen & Raphael
Second qtr. – Miles, Jayden, Matthew, Hunter & Evan
Third qtr. – Devyn, Jaylen, Raphael, Miles & Jayden
Fourth qtr. – Matthew, Hunter, Evan, Devyn & Jaylen

In week 3, we will take his top two slots from week 2 and drop them down to the bottom and everyone else moves up.

slot 1 – Devyn #5
slot 2 – Jaylen #6
slot 3 – Raphael #2
slot 4 – Miles #1
slot 5 – Jayden #7
slot 6 – Matthew #8
slot 7 – Hunter #4
slot 8 – Evan #3

Coach Horton’s four quarters for week 3 would look like this:

First qtr. – Devyn, Jaylen, Raphael, Miles & Jayden
Second qtr. – Matthew, Hunter, Evan, Devyn & Jaylen
Third qtr. – Raphael, Miles, Jayden, Matthew & Hunter
Fourth qtr. – Evan, Devyn, Jaylen, Raphael & Miles

Week 4, again, we drop the top two from week three to the bottom two slots:

slot 1 – Raphael #2
slot 2 – Miles #1
slot 3 – Hayden #7
slot 4 – Matthew #8
slot 5 – Hunter #4
slot 6 – Evan #3
slot 7 – Devyn #5
slot 8 – Jaylen #6

Please take a look at the rotation sheet from last year to see examples of teams that had the same amount of players on their roster as you do if you did not have eight kids. I hope this further clears up how the rotation works. We enforce the rotation system to ensure equal playing time and that all kids get to start games. If a player is absent or sick for a week, his slot in the rotation is skipped for that week only and everyone moves up one slot for that game. We will publish the entire rotation schedule before week three begins here on the website.

At the season-ending tournament, we change the rotation rules. The main rule in the tournament is that all kids on the bench for a quarter must play in the next quarter. Kids can play the entire game in the tournament as long as everyone on the bench plays the next quarter.