SportsClimb is a free site for players, parents, coaches, and fans to “connect” around their sports activities. Unlike other team or league management sites, SportsClimb is people-based.

Players (or their parents) can create and track all their teams in one place, no matter what management sites their teams or leagues choose to use. Coaches can create and track all their teams as well. Both players and coaches can invite players to join their teams. Most important, players can invite their aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends, etc. to become their “fans” and follow their victories and heartbreaks on all the teams they play on.

Even children in their first year of youth soccer have fans! These fans want (need?) to keep up with their “stars!” Fans want to know the schedule of games so they can plan to go. They want to know the results of games and how their stars are doing. They want to encourage them. They want to be connected!

SportsClimb includes unique features to support your children and their fans on SportsClimb. See the PARENTS sections for details.

Likely every youth sports organization you belong to uses some kind of league management system to publish team, schedule, and results information. Some even track your team and individual statistics, though many do not. Over time, this information about YOU gets spread over many sites, or worse, gets deleted or lost. Have you ever tried to go back and find it? SportsClimb lets you keep your sports information in one place, even if you play in many sports, on many teams, and for many seasons.

Another problem is that just about every team and league uses a different management system, making it nearly impossible for your fans to keep up. SportsClimb is designed to help your fans keep up with all your sports in one place!

• Players “own” information about their teams, seasons, schedules and results for many popular sports.
• Players can maintain a wide variety of individual and team stats for the games they play, including stats calculated based on those entered. Season stats are also automatically calculated.
• Players can determine if and when they get game and practice notifications from SportsClimb.
• Players can invite people to join SportsClimb and become their fans
• Players can share team, schedule and results information with their fans
• Players can link to game pictures and online video for viewing by their fans
• Coaches can manage all their teams in one place
• Coaches can track team and player statistics
• Coaches can manage attendance and snack schedules
• Fans can see all their “stars” sports information in one place and leave words of encouragement for viewing by their stars and other fans.
• For each of their stars, fans can determine when they get email from SportsClimb and for what purposes: game notifications, game results, schedule changes, etc.

SportsClimb currently supports the most popular youth sports: baseball, basketball, football, hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, and volleyball. (More to come!)

Easy! Just select Invite Fans from the Fans menu, then type in their names and email addresses as well as a brief message you want them to receive. SportsClimb will do the rest!

Only your fans can view your information UNLESS the you select the "Make Public" option on your Profile page. This option allows you to share links to your player, team and game pages with people who can view them without becoming a SportsClimb member.

For increased security, "public" players can also specify an "alias" to be displayed on pages when viewed by someone who's not a fan in SportsClimb. For example, your name could be displayed as "Slugger", "Hockey Star", "Spiker", or simply your first name.

Note that players using child accounts in SportsClimb do not have the ability to choose these options. Only a parent can choose these options on their children's behalf.

SportsClimb gives athletes the ability to track individual physical and performance metrics over time, and then have the option to share those metrics with fans and/or coaches.

You can select from a pre-defined list of metrics or create your own custom metrics, e.g., time for a drill created by your coach. Pre-defined physical metrics include height, weight, body fat, hand length and arm length. Pre-defined performance metrics include all those tracked by college and high school football Combines as well as others commonly used in a variety of sports.

First, check the “Track Metrics” box in your Preferences, then:

• 1. Select the Metrics/Set up... menu and choose pre-defined metrics or create your own custom metrics to track.


• 2. Record metrics by selecting the Metrics/Record... menu. You can enter as many date/value combinations as you want for each of your selected metrics. You don't have to enter values for all selected metrics at one time. Within a metric you can only enter one value for any given date. You can also delete previously entered values by clicking the corresponding X. Click the Save button when you are done.


• 3. Select Metrics/View... to see all your recorded metrics in a line chart with dates on the X-axis and values on the Y-axis.

Adding teams to SportsClimb is very easy. First, make sure you’re set up as a player in your profile by clicking “Profile” in the left side menu. Once you’re a player, click “Manage Teams” in the left side menu, then click the “Add Team” button at the bottom. Team name, sport, city, state (if applicable), country and information about a season are required to create a team.

No. If you’re a player, you can add your teams and use it to stay connected with your fans whether the rest of your team uses it or not.

As a coach, you can add your teams and invite players to join, but they don't have to join for you to send them messages and track their statistics.

Once you’ve created a team and its first season, you can manage seasons and schedules by clicking “Manage Teams,” then “Manage Seasons” by the team name. Previously-created seasons for your team appear where you can update details, manage the season schedule, and delete the season if no game results in the season have been confirmed. You can also add a new season by completing the form at the bottom of the page and clicking “Add.”

SportsClimb lets you set up three different schedules for a season: games, practices, and other events (e.g., parties). Note: Fans can only view game schedules.

SportsClimb lets fans indicate when they will be going to a game. When viewing the upcoming schedule of games, click the “Preview” link next to a game to see if your fans will be attending.

SportsClimb lets players indicate when they will NOT be going to a game. (Note that the default setting for players is to attend.) When viewing your upcoming schedule of games, uncheck the “Attending” checkbox next to a game to indicate that you will NOT be attending.

Yes. So that each player on a team does not have to enter identical teams, seasons, schedules, and game results information in SportsClimb, players can invite other players to join their teams. Once a team has two or more members, all players effectively “share” ownership of the team equally. A team voting system ensures that game results are accurate.

After a game, any player can enter team results, including team statistics. If there are other members on the team, SportsClimb will send each of them an email asking for confirmation or rejection of the results and statistics. Results and statistics become final when SportsClimb receives at least two more confirmations than rejections. (In the case of a team with just two SportsClimb members, the other player must confirm for the results and statistics to become final.) If a player rejects a submission, he or she can always submit team results and statistics for consideration by other players.

Note that if your team has a coach in SportsClimb, you may or may not be able to enter game results. See the COACHES section for more information.

No. As soon as you have (1) entered your player results and (2) submitted team results or confirmed another teammate's team results, SportsClimb will ask if you want send “unconfirmed” results to your fans immediately or wait until team results have been confirmed by your teammates before sending.

No. Individual player statistics are the responsibility of each player. Other members of your team can view your player statistics, however.

If a player on a team with multiple SportsClimb players wants to invite new players to join, the list of invitees is sent to existing team members for approval. As with voting for game results, invitations will only be emailed when SportsClimb receives at least two more confirmations than rejections. (In the case of a team with just two SportsClimb members, the other player must confirm before the invitations are sent.)

No, once a player has joined a team, they can indicate that they play for any season that has been created for the team.

Yes and no. Since team members are equal co-owners, each can:

• Change and delete the team (Note: No member of a team can delete a team if results have been confirmed for any game in any season.)
• Change, add, and delete seasons (Note: No member of a team can delete a season if results have been confirmed for any game in that season.)
• Change, add, and delete games, practices, and events (Note: No member of a team can delete or change a game if results have been confirmed for the game.)

Notes:

• Player statistics entered by a team player can never be deleted or changed by another player on the team.
• Any changes to teams, seasons, games, practices, and events are logged for viewing by all members of the team on the appropriate pages.

You can enter game results and statistics approximately 1 hour after the scheduled start time for a game both for you and for your team. The team schedule will display three “Add” links: Pics/Vids, Player Results, Team Results.

• 1. Click “Add” under Pics/Vids. SportsClimb does not store photos or videos, but lets you provide links to up to 20 photos and YouTube videos per game. For photos, enter a direct link. (Not all photo web sites allow direct linking. Sites that do include PhotoBucket, Flickr, Zooomr, imgur.com and tinypic.com.) For video, enter the “youtube.com” link displayed at the top of your browser when you play the video. SportsClimb will validate both photos and videos before saving. Photos and videos will be displayed to users in the order in which they are entered. Note: it is your responsibility to ensure the links remain active.


• 2. Click “Add” under Player Results. First, enter your game recap. Describe in your own words how the game went, who was there, what was exciting, what was disappointing and what's next. Then select the position(s) you played in the game and enter associated statistics.


• 3. Click the “Tentative” button to save so you can add updates later, or click the “Confirm” button to save your information permanently. (You cannot change player results after you click a “Confirm” button.) Once you confirm your player results for the game, SportsClimb automatically calculates your season stats based on all games in the season for which you've confirmed player results.


• 4. Click “Add” under Team Results. First, select the “game format” from the drop down menu. For example, you can specify how many periods or innings, or whether the game had overtime(s) or a shoot-out. You can even specify just a “final score.”.


• 5. Next, complete team statistics for the game and click the “Tentative” button to save so you can add updates later or the “Confirm” button to save the team results permanently or submit the results to your team. (See the Team Co-Ownership section about teams with more than one member.) Once team results for the game have been confirmed, SportsClimb automatically calculates your team's season stats based on all games in the season with confirmed team results.

SportsClimb lets you maintain a wide variety of sports statistics for yourself and your teams. Many statistics are automatically calculated for you based on other statistics you enter. Season totals and averages are automatically maintained by SportsClimb for you and your teams as well.

No. Using the statistics feature of SportsClimb is always optional.

A game recap is a text summary you can enter with game results and statistics which will be included in game results sent to all of your fans.

Yes and no. After entering either player or team statistics for a game, you can click either the “Tentative” (default) button or a “Confirm” button. Clicking the “Tentative” button will save your statistics and let you change them later. Results that are saved as “tentative” are not viewable by your fans or used in season calculations. Only after clicking a “Confirm” button are you unable change player results.

Similarly, you cannot change team results for a game after clicking the “Confirm” button with one exception: If your team is shared with other players (see the Team Co-Ownership section), clicking the “Confirm” button in Team Results will send an email to all other team players asking them to confirm your results. Until those results are confirmed by the votes of other team players, you may change those results and click the “Confirm” button again. Taking this action will cancel your previously recorded results and send a new email to all other team players. Note: if another player tries to “vote” on your previous team results, SportsClimb will not count the vote and tell the player that a more recent set of results have been recorded by you and emailed to them by SportsClimb.

Some statistics maintained by SportsClimb are calculated based on other statistics you enter. You can view them as they are calculated, but you cannot change them. In fact, some team game statistics (e.g., shut-outs) are based on the game score as well.

In most sports, player statistics are linked to player positions. For example, a nose guard does not have Rushing statistics in football and a center does not have Save statistics in hockey. So before you can record any player statistics for a game, you must first select which potential positions you think you will play during the season and select the actual position(s) you played in the game from the potential position list. You can set up potential positions by clicking Manage Teams, then Manage Seasons, then Player Setup. Note: you can change your potential positions for the season at any time.

Positions in youth sports range from the very broad (e.g., “player” or “offense”) to the very specific (“defensive end” or “right wing”). Many of these positions overlap with each other. SportsClimb gives you the ability to be as specific as you want when setting up a season.

When you update your Profile to tell SportsClimb that you’re a coach, you have the ability to create teams and invite your players to join. You can use SportsClimb to share game/practice/event schedules, send emails to your teams, view planned player attendance, record game results, manage team and player statistics, and even set snack schedules.

No. Even if invited players don’t join, you can still use SportsClimb to include them on emails, add them to snack schedules, and manage their player statistics.

Note that only players who join SportsClimb can view schedules, get game and practice notifications, participate in forums, and view statistics for themselves and their team.

After each game, you and other coaches/managers have the ability to record game results and player statistics, even if you or a head coach have given players the ability to perform these functions as well. On the schedule of games already played, click Add in the Player Results column to record player statistics and click Add in the Team Results column to record the game’s score, team statistics, and a Coach Recap.

As soon as you’ve added team results, you can click Send in the Send to Team column to send the game’s results and the Coach Recap to your team. (You can also click Don’t Send if you don’t want to send this information to your team.)

No! SportsClimb lets head coaches invite other coaches (additional head coaches, assistant coaches, managers, team moms, etc.) to help manage their teams.

For each season, coaches can also choose to give their players the ability to manage their personal statistics, add new seasons, update schedules, and even use SportsClimb’s unique voting system to manage game results and invite new players.

Managers, Team Moms, and Team Dads can:

• Update season schedules
• Assign snack duties for games
• Send messages to team

• Do all the above, plus...
• Invite and remove players
• Enter game results and statistics

• Do all the above, plus...
• Invite other coaches and managers, including other head coaches
• Add new seasons to team
• Update team and season information
• Set player SportsClimb abilities for a season (e.g., help with schedules, results, and/or statistics management)

SportsClimb has a very robust team and player statistics management system. You can choose which statistics to track each season. For each game, you select the position(s) played by each of your players and complete the statistics appropriate for those positions on a single page.

Calculated game statistics automatically update as you type. Season statistics automatically re-calculate after every game.

Yes! Just click “Profile” at the top of any page and check that you are a player as well. You can even be a coach and player on the same team!

SportsClimb lets you track all of your children’s teams at the same time. After first joining as a parent (by clicking the “Parent” checkbox when you join or in your Profile), click the “Children” menu to add your children who play sports. Then you can act on behalf of your children by selecting them from a pull-down menu at the top of any page. You can add new teams, schedules, and results, invite your children’s “fans” to join and follow them, accept team invitations from coaches and teammates, and perform other functions on behalf of a child.

Like any SportsClimb member, you can also become a fan of other athletes who are members. You can even manage and track your own teams and have your own fans!

As a parent in SportsClimb, you can create a separate account for your child that you or your child can manage, with one exception: Nobody can become a fan of your child in SportsClimb without first getting a parent's permission. You also have the ability to complete delete your child and her or her related information from SportsClimb at any time.

Click “Profile” in the left side menu, and check that you are a parent. At that point, a new option will be added to the left side menu for adding children. Note: Children cannot become parents and manage child accounts in SportsClimb!

All players and their parents receive private messages sent to their teams. Note: Only coaches, managers, and teammates can send private messages to an entire team.

Yes, you can create up to 10 child accounts in SportsClimb.

Yes. Click the “Manage Children” button on the left-side menu, then choose “Add Parent” next to the child’s name. Note: you need to know the user ID of the other parent to use this feature. Both parents then have equal ability to manage the child’s sports information and fans, even completely delete the child and his or her information from SportsClimb. Both parents also have the ability to add another parent for that child if desired.

As soon you’ve added a child, a yellow horizontal menu appears at the top of every SportsClimb page. This menu contains your name and the names of all the children you’ve added. By selecting a child from that menu, you essentially “become” that child and act on behalf of the child until you select yourself or another child from that same menu. You also have the ability to invite people to become fans of your child and approve fan requests, functions your child is not able to do.

Yes, unless you have checked the “Make Public” option in your child’s profile. See the PLAYERS section for more information about this option.

Yes. If you tell them their user ID and password, they can log into the site and manage their sports information. You have complete authority to manage each child’s password in SportsClimb, however.

Only fans that you approve can see information about your child's teams, seasons, schedules, and results, as well as profile information such as name and home city. However, if you approve for your child to be a fan of another player and your child leaves an “accolade message” for that player, your child's name will be displayed to all other fans of that player when they view that player's accolades.

You can choose to “break” the link between you and a child in SportsClimb by selecting “View/Add Children” in the left side menu, then clicking “break link” next to your child’s name.

Note: you cannot break the link between you and a child unless the child is at least 13 years old.

Yes! Just click “Profile” at the top of any page and check that you are a player as well.

SportsClimb fan is a member who can view the teams, seasons, game schedules, player and team results and statistics, as well as game photos and video of their stars. Fans can also receive emails notifying them of upcoming games and game results. Fans can also send messages and words of encouragement to their stars that they and their other fans can see. A calendar view lets a fan see the schedule and results of all their stars in one place.

Anyone can be a fan of a player in SportsClimb, including parents, players, and coaches. In fact, parents are automatically a fan of their children (see the PARENTS section).

Two ways:

1. 1. A player (or parent on behalf of their child -- see the PARENTS section) can send you an invitation to become a fan. If you accept and are already a member, you will automatically become a fan of the player. If you are not already a member, you must first register to become a fan. Note: If you are registered with a different first name, last name, or email address than the player used to invite you, you cannot become his or her fan. You must ask the player to invite you again with the correct first name, last name, and email address.


2. 2. You can search for a player who’s already a SportsClimb member. Click “Become a Fan” and enter search information such as email address, player name, home town, and team name. If there’s a match, you can send a request to become their fan.

No. You can select whether you get game notifications and/or game results, and whether you get emails immediately or in a daily or weekly digests. (SportsClimb will never send an unsolicited email.)

Daily and weekly digests are a way for you to reduce the number of emails you get as a fan and/or player from SportsClimb by asking it to combine emails from selected stars into consolidated emails that are sent on a daily or weekly basis. Go to “Preferences” to select how often you want to receive emails for each of your stars, including whether you want to receive any emails at all. Note: Even if you change an email preference for a star to a setting other than “Immediate,” you will still receive his/her messages in your SportsClimb “In Box” as soon as they are sent. The preference just affects how SportsClimb emails you.

SportsClimb sends daily digests every morning at about 1 a.m. Central Time, and sends weekly digests every Monday morning at about 1 a.m. Central Time.

Before sending game results, SportsClimb will consolidate available player game recaps and statistics into a single email.

SportsClimb lets players indicate when they will be going to a game. When viewing the upcoming schedule of games, click the “Preview” link next to a game to see if your star(s) will be attending.

SportsClimb lets fans indicate when they will be going to a game. (Note that the default setting for fans is to NOT attend.) When viewing the upcoming schedule of games, check the “Attending” checkbox next to a game to indicate that you will be attending.