By no means is this a comment to criticize the efforts of Dr. Brown and USL, but aren't these just repeats of the line USL has already taken? In 2014 USL published "golden stick" best practices. This summarized to stating that USL sanctioned events should be age based by calendar year. The new thing being added now is that USL will pilot age verification, which basically means kids show their USL member card at events or register using them like soccer has done.

All of this effort and the lacrosse tradesmen the laughed at it in 2014 and likely are howling still. Are lacrosse parents organized and motivated enough to go off and do organize their own leagues, events and do teams? Of course not. Is anything stopping the lacrosse trade from opting out and doing self insured events not sanctioned by USL? Of course not. The status quo is stuck in the mud no different from a national political debate over [fill in blank] social welfare program. I salute USL for making such efforts, but as a parent we can't just leave a frustration at their feet for all that is wrong here knowing they can't control it. Obama fan or no, we can't be critical of him for not deciding to just put his beliefs into law...as the congress and senate and....will need to be part of the process.

An additional approach might be to contact the insurers of grade based events. If a petition of parents signed a letter stating "we will move adverse to you as a class action" if a kid is debilitated on the field at an event maybe that would cut the lacrosse trade off at the pass. This grade based thing hasn't resulted in a revolt or a boycott. In fact summer tournaments and club fees today are on average more than double what they were 3 years ago. My kids played at $700 a season in 2012, and each are easily in the over $1500 a season and one is over $2000. Tournaments that were $1500 a 2 day weekend for a team to register are now $1500-$2500 PER DAY at those same events. It's pretty simple people, if the lacrosse tournament guys can't insure they are out of business exactly like a Bear Stearns or a Drexel Burnham were when the Fed didn't fund them overnight on a given day. You want this to end? Make it so they can't insure these events. Then they will fold and do age based teams, leagues and events in an instant to keep the cash coming.