The rules are focused around participation of all players, regardless of skill level, in a fun and competitive environment. Many players enjoy watching other games to cheer for their family and friends. Enrollment standards allow for returning players to have preferred registration opportunities to maintain neighborhood focus.
GBL features a playing time requirement for all divisions (except High School) to ensure that every player has an opportunity to participate in the game.
These rules continue to evolve.
GBL officials are KHSAA certified. In the divisions below Junior Varsity, officials are given the flexibility to call the game "as each individual's skill level requires", allowing each player to improve.
Officiating a game in this manner is more difficult than calling it strictly within the rules, and some fans have a hard time understanding the value of this process. This approach is paramount in encouraging all players to be equally active participants in a competitive manner. While there are times that these situations appear to give an upper hand to a developing player, our experience has proven that these calls rarely impact the game outcome.
It is the goal of the GBL team selection process to encourage balance of player skill levels within each team division. Great care is taken to assure that every child is placed in a situation for individual success within a team framework, while limiting a team's ability to gain a higher average level of skilled players than others. As a result, for most divisions, registration requests are not honored explicitly or implicitly.