Why Dugout Advisory
Your league deserves more than good intentions.
Behind every season is an organization handling money, child safety, facilities, regulations and decisions that affect an entire community — run by volunteers who were handed the job, not trained for it.
Free, no call required. Fifty questions across ten domains. · New: a picture book for young readers.
The thing nobody tells you when you’re elected
Your league is not a sports organization.
Your league president isn’t a full-time executive. Your treasurer isn’t necessarily a financial professional. Your safety officer may be learning the role for the first time. Every one of them carries responsibilities that create real consequences when something gets missed.
Dugout Advisory was built by youth sports leadership for the volunteers who keep community programs running — the people who said yes without getting a manual.
Your registration software manages your players. Dugout Advisory helps you manage your league.
What actually goes wrong
The biggest problems in youth sports never happen on the field
- A board member leaves without transferring what only they knew.
- A financial process runs unsupervised because nobody asked who reviews it.
- A parent dispute escalates because there was no documented procedure to point to.
- A safety requirement is overlooked in the rush to get the season started.
- New leadership inherits the league without understanding how any of it works.
Each one creates financial exposure, organizational disruption, damaged relationships, and lost opportunities for kids. Each one is preventable. Dugout Advisory helps you find these gaps and close them before they cost you a season.
The League Operating System
Ten domains. One of them decides the other nine.
Everything a volunteer board is actually responsible for, organized so you can see what you have and what you're missing.
Governance
Bylaws that match practice, real minutes, board authority you can prove.
Money
Budget, two-person controls, reconciliation, and filings that don't lapse.
Child safety
Screening, emergency plans, incident records, reporting done right.
Eligibility
Residency and age proof collected in February, not the week of the deadline.
Facilities
Agreements, renewal dates, equipment, keys, and every vendor contract.
Season operations
A twelve-month calendar with owners, so the year doesn't run on memory.
Disputes
Protests, parent complaints, and discipline handled by a process you published.
Communication
Sponsors, donors, and the crisis statements you write cold and use hot.
Volunteers
Recruitment that works, and a deputy behind every officer.
Continuity
The decision log, the accounts, the handoff. This is the one that makes the other nine survive you.
Every domain scores on the same four levels
Most volunteer leagues score 1 or 2 in nine of ten domains, and have never thought about the tenth at all.
Find out where your league actually stands
Fifty questions, ten minutes, a scored report showing exactly where you're exposed and what to fix first. No call, no credit card.
Best done with one other board member in the room.
Our Founder
Chris Carey
Founder, Dugout Advisory · Author, Wait, You Want Me to Be President? and Wait… You Want Me to Step Up?
An experienced leader with a background in corporate technology, nonprofit governance, economic development, and community service. His experience includes serving on economic development corporation boards and holding executive leadership positions within youth baseball and softball organizations. His leadership focuses on strengthening governance, improving organizational effectiveness, and developing sustainable programs that serve their communities.
As President of Boerne Little League(Past), Carey helped guide a period of organizational growth and improvement, with an emphasis on player development, program expansion, operational excellence, and long-term sustainability. During his leadership tenure, Boerne Little League advanced to the United States Championship Game at the 2024 Little League World Series. The league's continued success culminated in another Little League World Series appearance in 2026 as Southwest Region Champions. These accomplishments reflect the collective efforts of dedicated players, coaches, families, and volunteers, supported by a strong organizational foundation.
Carey's approach to leadership is grounded in accountability, transparency, sound decision-making, and the belief that lasting success requires more than short-term results. His experience navigating complex organizational challenges, balancing competing interests, and leading volunteer-driven initiatives has shaped a practical understanding of what it takes to build strong, effective organizations. He believes leadership is ultimately measured not by individual recognition, but by the people developed, the trust established, and the strength of the organization left behind.
Carey resides in Texas with his family and remains actively engaged in community development, youth sports, and initiatives that promote leadership, character, and meaningful opportunities for future generations.
- Wrote the book on it. Wait, You Want Me to Be President? — the memoir, now on Amazon.
- And one for the dugout kids. Wait… You Want Me to Step Up? — a picture book about doing hard things, ages 4–8.
- Governance beyond the ballfield. Economic development corporation boards, plus youth baseball and softball boards.
- Builds systems, not dependencies. Organizational clarity and sustainable volunteer-driven structures.
The memoir
Wait, You Want Me to Be President?
Lessons from the volunteers who actually run youth sports
Everything on this site started as a story. This is the story — the unvarnished account of saying yes to running a youth league, and finding out what the job actually was.
Board meetings that ran past midnight. Eligibility fights, protests, and complaints filed with receipts. An all-star run that went further than anyone planned. And the hardest part nobody warns you about: handing it all to the next person and walking away. The chapter that gave Dugout Advisory its flagship, The Relay Throw, is in here.
For every volunteer who got handed the keys and a box of paperwork, and wondered what they'd just agreed to.
Also new
Wait… You Want Me to Step Up?
A Little Book About Doing Hard Things
The same story, written for the kid in the back seat on the way home from practice. An ordinary baseball dad gets asked to do something he doesn’t feel ready for, and says yes anyway.
Courage is trying when you’re scared. Mistakes are how you learn. The best leaders make everyone around them better, and doing the right thing counts most when nobody is watching. Illustrated, 76 pages, for ages 4–8.
You don’t have to be ready to do something hard. You just have to be willing to begin.
The flagship
The Relay Throw
A relay throw isn't one player making a heroic throw from the warning track. It's two players, positioned deliberately, executing a handoff at speed — and the runner is out because someone was standing in the right place before the ball was hit.
Institutional memory works the same way. The handoff can't be improvised at the moment of transition. It has to be built all season, before anyone needs it. The Relay Throw is the system that does it: a decision log that records why and not just what, an account register so the organization owns its own logins, an obligation calendar, officer handoff packets, and a structured transition meeting.
The test it's built around: if every current officer disappeared tonight, could a new board run a full season from the written record without contacting any of them?
Pricing
The President's Binder
Eighty-nine documents, ten domains — everything the last president should have handed you. Editable, dated and versioned, and yours to keep.
The President's Binder
The whole organization.
- Volumes I–III, 71 documents across domains 1–6, 8 and 9
- League Readiness Assessment
- Master Season Calendar workbook
- The First 100 Days guide
- Volume IV — Disputes & Protests
- Volume V — The Relay Throw continuity system
- League Operating System workbook
For context: $80 is less than one weekend of umpire fees, and a fraction of one set of catcher's gear. It's nothing at all next to a disqualified all-star team.
FAQ
Questions boards actually ask
We already pay for Sports Connect or Playmetrics. Isn't this the same thing?
No, and you should keep them. Those handle your games: registration, schedules, rosters. This handles your organization: bylaws, financial controls, safety documentation, disputes, and the handoff. Different problem, different tool. They don't overlap.
We don't have the budget for this.
Name the comparison out loud: your league spends more on umpires in one weekend than the Binder costs. The assessment is free, so you can find out exactly where you're exposed before you spend anything. This is priced as insurance, not software.
Couldn't I just make my own templates?
You can, and some of it you should — every league is a little different. The real questions are whether you'll do it before the season starts, and whether you'll update it when the rules change next year. And no template tells you what to do when a protest is filed at 9pm on a Saturday.
Our district already shares a folder of forms.
Then you're ahead of most leagues. Two questions: when were those last updated, and does the folder cover continuity — decision logs, account transfer, handoff packets? That's where almost every shared folder stops.
I'm only here for one more year.
That's exactly the argument for it. The whole system is built for the person who's leaving. The only question is what you hand the next one.
Are the books the same thing as the Binder?
No — and there are two of them. Wait, You Want Me to Be President? is the memoir: what it's actually like to run a league, told honestly. Wait… You Want Me to Step Up? is a picture book for ages 4–8 about saying yes to something hard. The Binder is the toolkit — the documents and systems so the next president doesn't have to learn it all the way I did. Read a book to see why it matters; use the Binder to do something about it.
Is this legal advice?
No. It's operational guidance and document templates from someone who ran a league. Anything with legal exposure carries a note to review it with your own counsel, and requirements vary by state and by governing body.
Does this work for soccer, football or basketball?
Nine of the ten domains are identical in every sport — governance, money, safety, facilities, volunteers, communication, continuity. Only eligibility rules and the competition rulebook change. About 85% is sport-agnostic today.
Additional information
Request Information
Tell me what your league is dealing with and I'll tell you honestly whether this helps.
Tell me your league, your role, and the one thing that worries you most going into next season.
Dugout Advisory provides operational guidance and document templates. It is not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Requirements vary by state and by governing body and change over time. Review policies with licensed professionals before adoption. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Little League Baseball, Sports Connect, PlayMetrics, or any national governing body. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.