Youth Club Guidelines

Updates for Sep 2025 – Aug 2026

• YCC Priority Chart replaced with a Promotion/Relegation Points System
  • In age-gender divisions with 24 or more interested teams, there will be two separate championship tiers, DI and DII, rather than turning away teams who cannot be hosted in a single tier/division.
  • USA Ultimate will accept all teams that apply before the March deadline.
  • The Points System allocates points towards each team’s DI placement, with more points based on a team’s prior year YCC finish (up to ⅔ of the total max points) as well as for their supporting LDO & state youth growth/competition activities (up to ⅓ of the max points available).

Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 Youth Club Guidelines

The Youth Club Division is designed to include as many players as possible who have not yet completed the high school (HS) phase of life, while also maintaining consistent age-based cutoffs (under-20 and under-17) that allow for fair competition. During the summer, we extend the high school phase to include players who have just recently graduated from high school in the past few months.

Team Requirements

1. On-time receipt of application
2. Adequate adult support
   1. At least two USAU-qualified chaperones.
   2. At least one rostered coach with USAU Youth Coach Certification. Information on where to obtain certification can be found here.
   3. All coaches attending the event must be rostered and have completed some level of Coach Certification.
   4. No coach or chaperone may be rostered on two or more youth teams at the same youth event (including across multiple gender or age divisions).
   5. Those fulfilling the required minimum roles of certified coaches or chaperones CANNOT compete or coach in ICC (the adult U.S. Open) during YCC.
   6. A coach who meets the chaperone requirements may fulfill both the role of a coach and the role of a chaperone on one team roster.
3. Must be made up of players residing in the same (USAU youth) region, with residency defined as:
   1. the location where the person is living for the majority of August, AND
   2. the location where the person is living for the majority of the 3 months prior to August.
   3. If the above definition means that a player does not have a region as their “residence”, then the player is considered to be an out-of-region player.
   4. Teams are allowed a maximum of 4 out-of-region players. If you have out-of-region players, you will need to provide the reasons that these players are on your roster in this Out-Of-Region Players form.
4. A minimum of 14 total players registered and in attendance at the event. For mixed divisions, at least 6 man-matching and 6 woman-matching players.

Player Requirements

1. Players must be students currently enrolled in high school, middle school, or junior high. Recent high school graduates are permitted if they have graduated (or received a GED) within the 9 months prior to the YCC event start date (planned to be either 8/1/2026 or 8/8/2026).
2. No player can currently or previously have played college ultimate; rostered as practicing with team or competed at a sanctioned event
3. Each player on the roster must be a USA Ultimate member in good standing at all times during the event. Players may not use Affiliate Membership or pay one-time event fees for YCR.
4. No player may be listed on two or more rosters at the same event (including across multiple gender or age divisions).
5. Players under the age of 18 must have a completed Medical Authorization Form onsite at the event with their coach or chaperone.
6. To be eligible for an Under-20 (U20) Division, players must be between ages of 14 and 19 on both the start date of the Youth Club Championships (planned to be either 8/1/2026 or 8/8/2026) and at the end of the year (i.e., birthdate between 1/1/2007 and 8/1/2012).
7. To be eligible for an Under-17 (U17) Division, players must be between ages of 12 and 16 on both the start date of the Youth Club Championships (planned to be either 8/1/2026 or 8/8/2026) and at the end of the year (i.e., birthdate between 1/1/2010 and 8/1/2014).
8. For Youth Club Regionals only: younger age divisions (e.g., Under-15) can be offered at the discretion of the Local Organizers and Tournament Director.
9. Organizations may apply for player eligibility exceptions based on special needs to fill their team roster(s). All divisions are eligible for this process. Girls’ teams and female-matching players in mixed are more likely to receive consideration. Organizations will submit their eligibility requests through the Organization Request for YCC Player Eligibility Exception Form.

On-Field Personnel Ratio for Mixed Divisions

1. The personnel ratio for the mixed division of the Youth Club Championships and Regionals will be 4:3 (4 man-matching players and 3 woman-matching players, or 4 woman-matching players and 3 man-matching players), adhering to WFDF Rule A:
   1. These games will also have an additional disc flip after the initial flip, where the winner will decide the personnel ratio for the first point. For the second and third points, the ratio must be the reverse of the first point. For the fourth and fifth points, the ratio must be the same as the first point. This pattern of alternating the ratio every two points repeats until the end of the game (half time has no impact on the pattern). This is in line with WFDF’s Rule A, also known as the “prescribed ratio” rule described in the official WFDF Rules of Ultimate – see Appendix v1.0.
   2. In addition to Rule A, whichever gender-matching players have the majority on the starting line, a player of that gender-matching group will need to pull. For example, if there are 4 woman-matching players and 3 man-matching players on the line that is pulling, one of their woman-matching players must pull the disc to start the point and vice versa.
2. If a team cannot match the on-field personnel gender-matching ratio of all 7 players, then it must play with fewer than 7 players, matching the personnel gender-matching ratio with as many players as possible.
3. Injury timeouts
   1. In the event of an injury time-out where a player leaves the field, the replacing player must maintain the same personnel ratio as was with the injured player.
   2. If a team replaces players, the opposing team has the option of substituting a like number of, or fewer players.
   3. The replacing player(s) must maintain the same personnel ratio as was with the player(s) they replace.
   4. If a team calls an injury time-out but does not have a replacement player to maintain the same personnel ratio as was with the injured player, it may not replace that player and must play with fewer than 7 players.

2026 Youth Club Regional Events (YCR)

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Overview

USA Ultimate is looking for organizations to help us expand the regional youth club competition structure. These events bring together teams from different areas, ideally from within the host region, to compete against one another. These regional events should typically be much more accessible than Youth Club Championships (YCC), and these regional events should also allow for inclusion of younger age divisions than YCC (e.g. U15 or younger). These tournaments will serve three major functions by providing:

1. Warm-up opportunities for teams preparing to compete at YCC in August.
2. An accessible event for teams who may pursue attending YCC in subsequent years.
3. A season-culminating event for teams who are not competing at YCC.

Bid Application

Any organization that wants to run a Youth Club Regional event should email the Youth Competition Manager in order to pursue sanctioning, promotion, and other appropriate support.

Application and Team Selection

Application deadlines will be set by the tournament organizer. Teams must be eligible by the USAU YCC and Youth Club Regional guidelines to participate in these events:

• Events must offer equal playing opportunities for boys and girls.

Event Registration

Information on paperwork requirements and deadlines will be sent to selected teams along with the invitation to the event.

Schedule Formats

Formats for Youth Club Regionals will be determined by the local organizer/Tournament Director and will depend on the number of teams and fields, showcasing the division at its best, and providing a great playing experience for all the teams.

2026 USA Ultimate Youth Club Championships

Overview

The goal of this event is to provide national-level competition for youth ultimate players and encourage local playing opportunities for youth within the USAU structure. In 2026, USA Ultimate will be hosting divisions for two separate age divisions – Under-20 and Under-17. The guidelines that follow are USAU’s requirements for qualification and criteria for acceptance for the USAU Youth Club Championships. As this is a growing and emerging division, these guidelines and the tier placement process are subject to change each year. 

Application Process and Dates

September 1, 2025   Pre-Admissions – LDOs will submit a list of their 2024-25 Sep-Aug growth/youth activities, based on the criteria in the Points Charts, which will correlate to placement points that will be added to those earned by 2025 YCC team placements and by team counts from USA Ultimate High School State Championships (2024-25 Sep-Aug).

In shifting the team notification ahead to the fall rather than winter/early spring, USA Ultimate encourages programs to take advantage of the extra time to form teams, in order for students, coaches and support staff to be able to appropriately prevent and plan around any conflicts which might not allow them to attend YCCs.  USA Ultimate encourages programs to consider running team tryouts in the fall, at least for a critical core of players (perhaps the YCC minimum rostered number) with room to add more at a later stage, even if the team does not start practicing until the following spring or summer.  Hopefully this will provide more existential stability for teams as well as for team’s rosters or roster cores.  Official final rosters will still have a due date in mid-July, only a few weeks before the event.  Programs that hold tryouts in the fall could reserve a few spots for “late bloomers” to be added to the team in the spring or early summer.

After May 1st, new teams and international teams may apply.  These teams will be admitted on a first come – first served basis, based on field space and scheduling capacity.

Team Bid Allocation Limits and Gender Balancing

With the goal of accepting all teams that want to attend YCCs in some tier for their age-gender division, there is also an ongoing goal to increase the number of girls division teams, which have historically been far fewer than boys division teams hosted by YCC events.

For an LDO to send a second team (a.k.a, “B-team”) in a boys gender division in either U-20 or U-17 age groups, that LDO must also send at least one girls division team in either age group.

For every additional boys division team, the LDO must send an additional girls division team.

All additional teams in the mixed division & girls divisions will be accepted without any additional requirements.

Team Tier Placement Process

The process is designed to encourage communities to develop both youth club playing opportunities, outside of the school structure, as well as school-based opportunities that support the USAU High School State Championships.

In the past (from 2005 through Aug 2025), team acceptance to YCC was entirely based on growth and sanctioning metrics for the local disc organizations (LDOs) that sponsored each team.  In 2026, the goal will be to accept all interested teams.  In any age-gender division with 24 or more interested teams, the division will be separated into two tiers: DI (upper) and DII (lower).  Age-gender divisions with DI and DII tiers will use the Points Chart (see section below) to determine team tier placements. 

For more background information on the youth club competition restructuring effort, please see this document.

Promotion/Relegation Points System

See this document for a written description of the process rationale for the Points System charts.

YCC 2026 promotion/relegation points system

Competition (placing team earns points)

LDO-Level Growth/Youth Activity Goal

State-Level Growth/Youth Activity Goal

The points system is designed to offer approximately ⅔ of the achievable points based on a team’s final placement at the previous YCC (team competition results/strength) and ⅓ of the achievable points based on local & state growth/program factors (as supported directly by each team’s supporting LDO and home state). While it is a goal for YCC to showcase the highest level of youth ultimate competition, it also a goal for the event to showcase and reward LDOs that promote & encourage growth and accessibility of the sport for youth locally, in order to increase the overall number of players at all levels, not just those with the time, resources and commitment levels to attend national-level travel events.

Achieving the maximum growth/activity points is designed to be a relatively high bar that only a few states and organizations typically reach.  Most organizations are likely to be already operating programs that earn growth points, and those who are not should be able to make relatively small and/or modest changes to begin earning growth points.

• All LDO-Level/State Level youth activity must have taken place in the 12-month period or “guidelines year” immediately preceding YCCs.
  • For example, the promotion/relegation points for the 2026 YCCs will be earned by youth programming that takes place from Sep 2024 –  Aug 2025  as well as teams’ final placements earned at the 2025 YCCs.
• Competition points are only earned by each specific team within an age-gender division.
• Points determine teams tier (DI vs DII), not seeding within a tier.
• A team can request to move down to a lower tier. This would require approval from the RYDs AND that another team is willing to move up to fill the high tier.
• New teams will be placed into DII for their first year and then have an opportunity to move up in the future.
• Each LDO can only get one DI invite for  their top team in an age-gender division.
  • All subsequent teams (2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc, a.k.a. “B/C/D teams”) will be offered DII placement and will only gain access to DI if fewer than 16 total LDOs accept DI placement (or if fewer than 24 total teams register for the division).
• For LDO sanctioned youth event points, a maximum of two “events” in each gender category can be earned by sending youth club teams to a Youth Club Regional event.

Teams that place 1st through 3rd in DII will earn more competition points than those that place 11th through 16th in DI, in order to increase the likelihood that they will be offered DI in the following year.

If every team earns the same number of growth points (i.e., looking only at competition points), 3 teams would move from DII to DI (and 3 teams would move from DI to DII):

Tie Breakers

For teams tied in total promotion/relegation points, tiebreakers be awarded in favor of the program with the higher points total in the following categories, listed in descending order of priority:

• Competition
• LDO-level activity
• State-level activity
• Girls division state championships

Prior Years

Teams that were not in the previous year YCC but that competed in one of the 3 prior years will earn points equal to their most recent finish with a 25% absolute reduction for each year.  For example, for 2026 YCC competition points:

• If an interested team only missed 2025 YCC, they would receive 75% of the competitive points for their 2024 placement.
• If they missed 2025 & 2024 YCCs, they would receive 50% of the competitive points for their 2023 YCC placement.
• If they missed 2023-25 YCC, they would receive 25% of the competitive points for their 2022 YCC placement.
• If a team has missed more than 3 years immediately preceding the event year being placed, then no competition points are available.

Future Growth Percentages

The “Future growth %” column indicated in the chart will not be used for 2026 YCC tier placement, but is planned for use in subsequent years. Growth activity that is reported and verified for Sep 2024 – Aug 2025 will be used as a comparative baseline for determining percentages in the subsequent years’ data aggregation. 

In future years, for any states or LDOs with no activity in a category in the previous year, no growth will be possible in the subsequent year (with zero as the previous year denominator) until they establish that activity as a new baseline. For example, if a state has no USAU State Championship in Fall 2024 – Spring 2025, and then host a USAU State Championship in Spring 2026 with 4 teams, they will not be considered to have grown by any fixed percentage (having gone from 0 to 4 teams). But if the subsequent Spring 2027 State Championship has 6 teams, then they would have 50% growth indicated. This will apply to LDO’s USAU-sanctioned events also. We will use Sep 2024 – Aug 25 activity as a growth baseline for Sep 2025 –  Aug 2026.

Youth Event Requirements

For the purposes of the Points System for YCC, youth events will be defined as follows:

1. Youth League or Tournament – must be operated within the previous “guidelines year” preceding the YCC event’s guidelines year (e.g., for YCC in August 2026, events operated from Sep 2024 – Aug 2025 are eligible for promotion/relegation points). Required event features:
   1. Sanctioned by USA Ultimate.
   2. Provides playing opportunities for youth in a youth-focused environment
   3. Competing teams at the event can be based on school affiliation (e.g., High School League/Tournament) but do not have to be.
   4. If an event is co-hosted by 2 or more LDOs interested in earning promotion/relegation points for their YCC teams, only one LDO may receive the credit towards the points system, and that determination for which LDO should be agreed upon between all of the LDOs who are co-hosting each event.
2. USA Ultimate reserves the right to determine whether submitted events meet the above criteria for promotion/relegation points for YCC tier placement.

Player Uniform Requirements

• All players participating in the USAU Youth Club Championship tournament for a given team must wear jerseys of identical color and design.
• Teams must have two jerseys of distinctly different colors.
• Jerseys must have numbers on the back that are in sharp color contrast to the jersey color (for ease of stat-keeper visibility and distinction). The numbers must be at least 6 inches high and be one or two digit Arabic numerals. No two players on a given team may use the same number or numbers with the same absolute value (e.g. 00 and 0, 01 and 1, etc.).
• Names, logos, and graphics on jerseys must comply with the Name/Logo/Uniform Guidelines above.
• Uniform bottoms (shorts, pants, skirts) worn by players on the field must be the same color.
• It is recommended, but not required, that uniform accessories including weather related gear, tights, undershirts, hats, and socks be of identical or coordinated style and color.
• USAU reserves the right to disqualify and/or fine players who fail to meet the uniform requirements.

Coach Uniform Requirements

• All coaches participating in the USAU Youth Club Championships must wear either a uniform of identical color and design as the team, or professional coaching attire as defined below.
• Professional coaching attire is defined as any combination of the following:
  • The team jersey, or a sleeved shirt/polo matching the team uniform colors
  • Team shorts/skirt or hemmed slacks/shorts/skirt of an appropriate solid color    
  • Business casual attire    
• Closed toe shoes such as cleats, flats, or athletic shoes. Flip flops, open toed sandals, and bare feet are not considered professional coaching attire.    
• Coach jerseys and shorts are not subject to the number requirements for players.
• Names, logos, and graphics on jerseys must comply with the Name/Logo/Uniform Guidelines above.
• It is recommended that uniform accessories including weather related gear, tights, undershirts, hats, and socks be of identical or coordinated style and color.
• USA Ultimate reserves the right to remove from the sideline/field and/or fine coaches who fail to meet the uniform requirements.

Event Registration

Information on paperwork requirements and deadlines will be sent to selected teams along with the invitation to the event.

Schedule Formats

Formats for YCC will depend on the number of teams and fields, showcasing the division at its best, and providing a great playing experience for all the teams.

Seeding

Youth Club Regional results will be the first factor considered in seeding decisions.  Teams that attend and are successful at YCR events will be given priority seeding.

After considering results from YCRs, the rest of the teams will be seeded by the USAU Championship series staff using the following information: input solicited from all the coaches of participating teams; results of last year’s Championships; and other applicable information such as team composition during or prior to the Championships and geographic location. 

Application and compliance of all guidelines will be subject to the discretion of the USA Ultimate Manager of Competition (Youth).