The injury thing seems like a stretch in that you are relating it to size and there are many kids the same age that are vastly different in size. I do think that lax teams and tournaments should be age based but purely based on fairness. It is clearly an advantage to hold your kid back from an athletic perspective so essentially you are putting those who do not at a disadvantage .That disadvantage can ultimately impact where your child goes to school etc. Some of you will disagree but not much different from taking steroids out of sports as best as possible.
I agree with this. Risk of injury is not really the main reason to switch to age based groupings, although a big, but young, kid, will be less of a danger to others than a big and older kid. The older kid will, on the average, be faster, stronger and more agressive that his younger counterpart at the same size.
In general, it is important that this issue relates to averages over a large amount of kids. Obviously, a kid can still be young chronologically, but have an "older" body on terms of early entry into puberty, advanced development of muscle tone, ect. Even if the kid is still small. It becomes an issue, though, when a team has many of these kids, and their opponents have few or none. And the physically advanced kid will not be trapped playing against "lower" competition in an age based system. If his family wants him to, he can play up (i.e. a 2005 playing with the 2004s).
I never said risk of injury was the main reason - I said that it could be the catalyst for forced change if change doesn't happen for the better reasons and a catastrophic situation comes as a result of an age mismatch. Proactive versus reactive.
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