Over the years I've read a number of posts about how kids who jump teams get a bad reputation and some coaches/managers won't touch them. This might make you reluctant to leave a team to join one that looks like a better fit. You folks who are relatively new to FP should know that depending on the area you live in and how you handle things (with honesty)and perhaps other factors, there may be no problem going to a new team, even year after year. Personally, I have never heard about a single kid that had a problem finding a team because of a reputation as a team jumper. We live in South Orange County and my kid has played on many different teams. She has played with teams for 3 months and left. She left one team at the end of the summer, then left that new team to rejoin that old team the next January. She almost did it again this fall. The longest she has ever played for a team was 2 seasons. As I recall she was the only kid that was on the team when she started and was still on the team when she left, except for 2 kids who had family ties to the team. I have heard bad things said about her, which are often true, but I have never heard anyone say they wouldn't take her because of the number of teams she has played on. And no coach/manager has ever asked before offering her a spot. We run into her old coaches/managers relatively often. They couldn't be nicer to us and to her, though I'm sure there are cases where the niceness is an act. Your feelings of loyalty to the team/coach/manager and your views on loyality in general is obviously something to be considered. But I've seen far too many kids replaced during tryouts (which I have no problem with) or kids sitting on the bench game after game for me to worry about one way loyalty. Not every coach/manager operates that way. Those whose actions suggest more than concern for winning games deserve a like amount of loyality IMO. Used to be folks worked at the same company all their lives. Loyalty was a 2-way street. Not any more. I'm certainly not going to worry about loyalty to my employer when I know that the company is only concerned about what I can produce, how fast and with what level of quality.
I suspect that there will be many who completely disagree with my views on loyality in FP. Maybe my attitude is wrong. But in my experience and from the things I have seen/heard, if a coach wants a kid, a history of jumping teams won't stop him/her from offering the kid a spot.
John