These clubs are full of kids who should be playing on teams one or two years older. 16 year old 8th graders doesn't exactly make the playing field level.
The amount of kids playing lacrosses is down, attendance at the NCAA Final Four is down. Why? In part because lacrosse is viewed as a sport of rich privleged kids whose parents will bend to rules to get ahead.
Sportsmanship, honor, integrity are not the strong suit of the holdback crowd. Win at all costs. If Biff can't compete with his 8th grade pals - let's just hold him back a year so he can play with little Trigg.
Participation rates are not down. The number HS offering Lacrosse nationwide is at an all time high. With regard to the final four. It's Memorial Day weekend, terrible weekend to hold the tournament. With expanded TV coverage most don't see value in going to the games. TV viewer ship is also at all time high. I will agree the hold back thing is a black mark on this sport that really needs to be removed. Age requirements are in place for every other legitimate sport. It's just laughable what's going on. As I posted on another thread, MD D1 recruits are way down from just 3 years ago. About 90+ kids from MD going D1. Down from 200 3 years ago. Can you imagine all these dim witted MD parents that held back their kids 1 or 2 years in hopes of a D1 dream? Only to now have a 20 year old freshman at a D3 school. Wow. Not sure if there's any correlation, but one would think their D1 commits would be way up. The facts say otherwise. Seems this hold back thing is not panning out the way folks hoped. Sure they look like superstars in 8th grade, but to be clear, these kids are not success stories. Sad really.
