When colleges start recruiting by birth date rather than by class, that's when it will stop. Other than that, it is up to the tournament directors to police the team rosters and put a limit on the amount of kids born prior to the US lacrosse age guidelines. But as others have said, there is no incentive to do that because the tournaments and leagues need the registrations. If you or your kid's team is so handicapped by age and you want to improve the experience, you'll need to move to a USL team and play in the SMYLA league or something similar.
I think the previous poster's point is that the community in general needs to put an end to it. The way things are today, teams are just stocking up on holdbacks and reclassified kids so a 2023 team is, for the most part, a rebranded 22 team. We, the parents, are the ones escalating things. The club teams, high schools, and colleges are the ones that get the benefit.
If everyone continues to hold back and reclassify their kids, we're just going to raise the age at every level in lacrosse. So at some point the playing field gets leveled until a group decides to triple holdback, and the cycle will then continue. We now have 16 year old 8th graders. What's next? 17 year old 8th graders? Do you really want that 17 year old taking your 13 year old daughter to the 8th grade dance? Think about it.
There is no advantage when everyone starts doing it.
We, as parents, are empowered to stop this silliness because it is spiraling out of control.
