For those of you who continuously complain about holdbacks in lacrosse, your kids will likely never be as successful as they'd like to be. And that's not because some other kid is 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 months older than him. It's because he, like you, blames external factors for his own shortcomings. The right combination of confidence and humility is needed to achieve greatness and success in any endeavor in life….humility being one of the biggest keys. The kids who succeed are the ones who believe that they can be better tomorrow than they were today and they don't believe that anyones else owes them anything.
You, sir, should run for President.
Here we go again ...
You know the kid that is going to be successful? The one that challenges themselves. The ones with character. Integrity. Grit.
So in one corner you've got a holdback kid who plays down to dominate.
In the other corner you've got an on age kid who plays up or holds his own with his peers.
Tell me wise one, which kid embodies all the values you espouse? Which kid would you rather be in the trenches with? Work with? Which kid do you think is working harder and being challenged more? Which one builds more confidence?
You know the answer. You just don't want to admit it.
TALENT PLAYS UP. PERIOD.
3 days or 3 weeks do not make a difference in a kid's ability to "dominate".
Just stop whining!
Well then why hold back? Your 3-day or 3-week older kid held back would likely be the youngest on his on-age team by only that same amount.
Personally I'm not sitting here complaining about it. But if it doesn't make a difference one way, then it shouldn't make a difference the other way and there's no reason to do it. I'm not going to judge what you do with your kid, but you obviously think there's some advantage to be had or you wouldn't be doing it.
I don't think reasonable people would think that there's much of an advantage when it's only three days, or three weeks, or (maybe) three months. But you have to set lines somewhere, and when people game the system around those lines, by no matter how much, people have a tendency to get upset.
The thing that really makes a difference is when puberty hits. If several (or most) kids on a team have already hit puberty because they've been held back, and they're playing against kids that haven't, that's where it actually is unfair. That's why the issue is 7th and 8th grade. Because kids held back one or two years in those grades are more likely to have hit puberty than on-age kids in those grades.
You hear stories about on-age 8th graders playing against a twice-held back 8th grader who drove to the game and was about 6-2 225 (I've seen that happen). I'm not sure really what that kid gets out of playing kids half (or less) his size, except film showing him dominating kids he should be dominating.
I've said it before... high school is the great equalizer. When that kid finally has to play against kids his size that have experience against older kids, you'll see how good he really is.
But there are safety and player-development issues that should be addressed. Youth sports (before high school) should focus less on winning and recruiting and more on player development. No one gets anything out of a 20-0 game, and believe me I've been on both sides of those games. Those kinds of results should be rare, and they should be addressed in some way when they happen.
