Originally Posted by Anonymous
Of course you are within the rules if your child is a holdback playing in his grade now.?? who said otherwise?? The rules letting teams of kids that should be in 5th grade but due to failure/prefirst/reclass are now in 4th grade play against teams of legal age 4th graders (is that better for you) is not how youth sports was meant to be played. Common sense tells you that.

Actually, a lot of people say that. I think that's what gets people so riled up about this issue. Call someone or their kid a "cheater" and watch what happens.

HoCo is a grade-based league. Here is the actual rule from the HoCo bylaws:

Quote
The Conference follows a grade based system based on the player’s current grade level and assuming normal progression of school to graduation. Players who are participating in any high-school level program such as a high school freshman, JV-B, junior varsity, varsity or club team should not be eligible for 8th grade/U15 competition in the same season.


Key terms here:

  • "A player's current grade level" meaning what grade is he in right now
  • "normal progression" meaning when will he graduate relative to what grade he is in right now

Some people say that holdbacks/prefirsts are not following a normal progression. And while that might have been true when they started or when they were held back, what this really means within the scope of the rules is you can't, for example, be an 8th grader this year (should be playing 2021) but play on a 2022 team this year knowing that you'll be repeating 8th grade after this year.

I'm not saying this is "right" or this is the way the league should be run, but this is the way the league is run. My kid is a pre-pubescent 8th grader playing against some of those should-be 10th graders, so believe me, I get it. But until the recruiting landscape actually changes, it is what it is.

People talk "US Lacrosse this" and "US Lacrosse that." US Lacrosse has no power to do anything with local leagues. If a local league (like HoCo) wants to have its own rules, it is certainly free to do so. What HoCo can't do is rely on member clubs to be able to use US Lacrosse's insurance program... each club has to have their own liability insurance. That's really the only thing that US Lacrosse's rules are for... if your league uses their set of rules, your program can be covered under their umbrella.