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Parent Coach Playbook

About · Methodology

How a piece gets onto this site.

Faceless byline, transparent process. Here is what every read goes through before it reaches you.

Last updated May 5, 2026.

The pipeline

Every read on the site moves through a four-stage editorial pipeline before it goes live.

  1. Draft. A working version, written for a real parent. Written by the editorial team, checked against the voice rules, no AI residue. Marked status: draft in the file's frontmatter.
  2. Claude review. Automated read-through against quality, originality, and voice criteria. Catches generic AI patterns, hedging, banned phrases, missing specificity. Marked status: claude-reviewed.
  3. Human review. Read by an editor, fact-checked against governing-body sources where claims need it, sensitive topics flagged for extra care. Marked status: jeff-approved when ready.
  4. Published. Marked status: published, deployed to the site, indexed by the search and topic system.

The pipeline is recorded in each piece's frontmatter. Open any markdown file in the repo and you can see the editorial block. We treat that block as part of the publication record, not back-office metadata.

What the editor checks

Six things, every time:

  1. Specificity. Real numbers, real names, real examples. "Most parents" gets cut. "73% of travel-team parents in the 2024 Project Play survey" stays.
  2. Citation discipline. Any claim that touches health, safety, money, or eligibility gets a primary source. Governing-body or peer-reviewed first; reputable secondary source as a fallback. The reference appears in the piece, not buried in a footnote.
  3. Voice integrity. Peer to peer, not consultant to client. No em dashes in prose. No "delve into," "leverage," "robust." Short paragraphs. The piece sounds like one human wrote it.
  4. Sensitive-topic flag. Mental health, body image, injury, return-to-play, divorce, identity. Extra care. Clinical language matched to current guidance. Reader directed to qualified professionals where it matters.
  5. Affiliate disclosure. If a piece names a product we sell on commission, the disclosure appears in the piece, not just on the privacy page. FTC requires it; we go further by labeling individual links.
  6. Date and review status. Every read carries a published date. If it has been reviewed since publication, the most recent review date appears on the piece.

Why faceless byline

Every read carries the same byline: Parent Coach Playbook Editorial. Three reasons.

  1. The site exists to be useful, not to build personalities. A read is right or wrong on its own. Whose name is on it should not change that.
  2. The editorial team includes parents who would prefer privacy. Real parents, real coaches, real programs. Some of them coach kids who attend the schools their day jobs are at. Faceless byline lets the work be honest without putting families in the middle.
  3. The credibility load shifts to the work itself. Specific numbers. Cited sources. Visible review dates. Public corrections. The page you are reading. None of that requires a face.

If you want to know who edits the site or contributes to a piece, write to [email protected]. We answer.

Update cadence

Reads are not static. Three things drive an update:

  1. A reader correction. If you spot a fact that's wrong, write to us. We re-check, fix, and log it on the corrections page.
  2. A governing body changes guidance. CDC HEADS UP, AAP position statements, NCAA eligibility, NFHS rules. When the source moves, we move.
  3. A scheduled review. Date-sensitive content (recruiting calendars, NIL rules, fee-structure data) carries a factCheckGoodThrough date in the frontmatter. The editorial dashboard surfaces pieces past their good-through date.

An updated piece carries the latest review date in its byline. The published date stays on the page so you can see the original timestamp.

External link health

Every external URL on the site is tracked in a public manifest. A daily Cloudflare Worker validates a rolling subset, surfaces broken links to the editorial dashboard, and queries the Wayback Machine for the last good snapshot when something goes 404.

When a link is dead, it gets replaced or removed. We try to point at primary sources (governing bodies, peer-reviewed journals, federal agencies) instead of news write-ups when possible.

Read the rest

→ Sources: the institutions, journals, and governing bodies we cite from.

→ Corrections log: every fix we have made to a published piece.

→ Disclosure: how the site is funded, what we collect, what we never do.

→ About: who this is for and why it exists.