All-area team complaints: How do you respond?

Picking all-area teams is always challenging for me. As someone else mentioned on this thread, my biggest concern is leaving off someone who is truly deserving.
And the nature of each sport is different. I pick a soccer team in the fall and most years I can pick maybe half the first team without thinking too hard. But there is usually a group that is borderline first team/second team. Sometimes I'll ask for input from coaches I trust if there is a choice between Player A and Player B; I don't have the expertise to determine who is the best central defender for instance.
I'll also work off the all-league teams that are named before our all-area team is picked.

What I will NOT tolerate is interference by parents. If a parent starts campaigning for their son (soccer/ice hockey) or daughter (softball), that's a black mark against the player and if I have to choose between their son or daughter and someone else's, guess who gets left off or relegated?

As to complaints .... If a coach has a complaint, I'll address it. One year we did goof and ended up adding someone ex post facto. If a parent e-mails me and is polite about it, I'll answer. If they're nasty, or, if they don't sign their name (Rare, but it has happened) I delete it without answering.

 

So your biggest fear is omitting a deserving player, but you're willing to hold the sins of the father against them. Got it.

 

Which dipshit was Sports Barf before he created "Sports Barf"?

 

You seriously think the scenario you laid out meets the definition of self-defense anywhere in America?

 

So ... your ASE opens the locked doors at your office, mounts the guy and wails on him, getting 6-7 punches in ... and he claims self defense?

 

Well, if the dad was black there's a few states where the ASE could roll the dice ...

 

Yes

 

Preemptive strike. If ASE didn't regulate that crazy dad woulda keep coming back and who knows what he woulda done.

 

What's an acceptable size for an all-area team? Roughly how many kids per area school on average, or don't you think that should matter?

 

So you leave a kid off, relegate them to second team or honorable mention that's possibly more deserving because a parent campaigns for a spot? Yeah, that's professional. Time to find another house to flip.

 

He's not worth your time or effort, B-WIP. Name alone says it all.

 

For football we do 30 players total because that's the way our design template works best. We do offense and special teams one day (a 12-3 split) and defense (a 5-5-5 formation) the next.
Basketball fluctuates between six and nine, depending on how good a year it was. The only requirement is that I try not to have too big a difference between the girls and boys teams. So I'll do seven of one and nine of another, or six and eight, but not six and nine.
Soccer is 11 or 12.
Baseball is 15 (five infielders, four outfielders, three pitchers, a DH, a utility and a catcher) and softball is about 12.

We only focus on four city schools, so your mileage may vary. My only real requirement is to have at least one kid from every school, if at all possible. Even with the worst teams there's usually one player who had halfway decent stats.