Maine District 4 LL Umpires: Rule Updates
Friday, April 8Rostered Coaches and Insurance Coverage
Questions concerning Insurance and Rostered Coaches:
Question: Are parents/volunteers (NOT a roistered manager or coach) who assist (example: on the field batting, catching and running) with a team practice, covered by the local Little Leagues insurance or are only the rostered manager and coaches of the team covered?
Answer from Ask Little League: Managers have no authority to appoint assistants or helpers at games or practices. Only the president can appoint (and the board approves) managers and coaches. This includes well-meaning parents who are performing coaching functions at practice. Individuals cannot circumvent the volunteer application and approval process by simply showing up at practice. If parents wish to help out, they would need to submit a volunteer application and be approved by the president and board. If this is accomplished, a league could have several parents helping out at practices, and they would be covered by insurance
Question: Can a League use multiple people (a volunteer, parent, another Teams Rostered Coach, Manager or BOD Member) as a Coach in the dugout when the Rostered Coach / Coaches for that Team are not available? If the answer is yes, then do they (the volunteers or parents who have been background checked by filling out a volunteer form) need to be a Rostered Coach, Manager or BOD member of that League or Team? I know that at no time there shall be no MORE than THREE adults in a Teams dugout. Having said that, can a Team have a Manager and MORE than two (2) Coaches on the roster as long as no more than 3 of them are in the dugout?
Answer from Eastern Regional LL: A league should NOT permit other individuals to service their teams when a rostered manager/coach cannot be present at a game. If so, the league should not have a parent or anyone else come in to be the "replacement". The team simply has one less adult manager/coach for that particular game. The only people that LLB will recognize to be in the dugout are the rostered manager and two rostered coaches. The "replacements" would not be considered as rostered...plus there is no insurance...or validation that these people had a background check completed, and the list goes on and on.
There is no restriction upon having the other rostered manager/coach from the other team to sub for another team but I would not recommend it. I just do not see the point in this... There could be some reasons for the league, like they want two adult base coaches or something but that to me is ridiculous...as long as there is one rostered manager/coach from the particular team present, there really is no need for the others to fill in.