To the long island community. Reclassification is here! We can choose to get made it it if you'd like but its like wasting your time and more importantly your effort. I don't support it, but this happens and will continue to happen even if you hate it. So the only thing to do as a sport is to ensure a safe and fair environment for kids to play. This is my suggestion to entire lacrosse community. The grade thing doesn't work, as there are plenty of kids who are a full year older then their counter parts. The age thing is the only way to make it work at the younger levels. This is the only way to ensure kids are playing on the same mental and physical level. Now this is all well and good, but as you may all know college coaches don't care how old a player is, they care what grade their in. So my suggestion is that everyone plays by age until they reach 9th grade. 9th grade and up is where players should play on grade despite their age. By that time most kids have gone through adult changes and the playing field evens out a bit. So no use for bashing clubs or coaches, because they are just doing what the community and the parents want for their kids. No way a coach or a club puts a kid onto a younger grade voluntarily, if they do then that is one thing, but most will put the child where the parents see fit. So if your going to yell at anyone yell at the parents because ultimately its their choice.
Well said and as a parent that has never let his kid play down, I would love to see it. Realistically it will never happen.
This is way it should be..Youth to play age.... school to play grade.... 9th and above has always been grade ... To easy..
But how would all the holbacks get a advantage then. How would Crabs survive?? Where is USL?? So not going to happen.
Lets think this through. If everyone follows US lacrosse age guidelines prior to high school then all 2018's will play by grade and 2019's will play u15.
Given that most 2018's are age eligible for u15 that doesn't solve the holdback issue. Almost all 2019 holdbacks are eligible for u15. What it does do is force all of the seventh grade summer birthdays to play u15 with 8th grade holdbacks. So we have gone from some older 8th graders playing with other 8th graders to those older 8th graders also playing with 7th grade summer birthdays. That system doesn't seem fairer or safer to me.
What makes the most sense is to stay grade based with a limitation that recognizes that many parents start their boys late in school or hold them back for legitimate reasons. Many boys with late spring or summer birthdays start late where I live. The Warrior World Series limitation of 5/1 is only four months different than US lacrosse and picks up the vast majority of the late starters. Given the Crabs are going to that event it seems like a limitation even they can live with.
The reason that the grade based system is popular is that the boys enjoy playing with their classmates. Throwing the system out because a few kids on a few teams game the system doesn't make sense. Putting a limit on how much they can game it limits the age differentials and also limits the collateral damage an age system inflicts.
Not sure where you are from or what you know about holdbacks in Baltimore area. As more and more parents at Private schools see that their child is at a disadvantage the birthdays will get farther and farther from summer. If you dont think this is happening now you are sadly mistaken. I am very familiar with MIAA schools and the children that attend. Many arent summer birthdays. What to do with them ?? Why do only these select kids get to play down. Why not let anyone play down who wants to??? Maybe they will redo 8th grade if they are good. When did youth sports become giving select kids a advantage???? Age for youth is what it should be. A very easy clear system . When you get to your school teams and HS teams you get the advantage of being older. It is utter BS that they want to play with their classmates. Most club teams have less than a few kids that are in same class. Plus that is what school teams are for.
