My two cents (adjusted to 4 1/2 for inflation):
-Our region was (until this year) one that waited until every team was eliminated before posting the list of all region players. I liked it that way. I've had girls get upset over the all region selections and I don't see a need to cause internal strife until the season is over - certainly don't want it during the playoffs. Yes, I'd love for my team to be a utopia and not be distracted by the all region team but they are high school kids. Bound to happen on occassion. Conversely, what is the benefit to announcing it immediately? Not trying to be confrontational, I fail to see a benefit to releasing it as early as possible (when we're only talking about 1 or 2 weeks) but that doesn't mean there isn't one.
-I categorically disagree that the committee should be made up of coaches from the top teams from the region. Let the other coaches acknowledge the players from those teams, it will add WAY more weight to the selections. It's very difficult seeing the team is made up almost entirely of players from schools that have coaches on the committee. It doesn't mean the players aren't deserving, but I think it means a lot more when the players are selected by other coaches. We're all biased towards our own players because of our familiarity to them, but we also (should) have enough integrity to select the most deserving players.
To expand on that, I think far too often these lists are unbalanced towards the best teams and not necessarily the best players. Often times there's going to be a correlation between the two, but it hurts players that may be elite but play on a weaker team in a stacked region. Put another way, I think you could pull the top one or two players of a lot more of teams in the state and put them in the conversation, but when those players play on a team where the 3rd and 4th best player would be the 10th or 11th (or maybe even bench players - if rostered at all) on some of the top teams they are not going to be able to influence many games. Does that lessen a player's quality? Yet we immediately remove them from the conversation because of the team they play for.
-I understand wanting coaches to be SCACA/SCHSSCA members as an incentive for them to become members (and I agree that we all should be). That said, if you're acknowledging that some coaches still aren't members then clearly the incentive isn't working and all you're doing by limiting coaches that can serve is ending up with a limited selection committee. That doesn't benefit the sport.
My proposal would be to offer spots on the committee on a rotating basis. If a coach/school turns down the opportunity then move on to the next one. At least that way there will be some diversity in the committees.
