His age is absolutely relevant. The grade based methodology is the crux of the issue. Double holdbacks, a pre-firster with a late birthday then held back again in elementary school at this age (ahem Madlax fogo) creates a situation where a child who should be playing at the 7th-grade level is running over 5th graders. Not saying that MadLax is the only offender out there, but it creates a completely unfair and unsafe situation for the other teams that adhere to the spirit of the rule. While US Lacrosse has set forth rules for age-based competition, clubs and tournaments openly disregard these rules and the lacrosse currently has no governing body that can actually force the broader lacrosse community to abide by these common sense rules.
