Wondering if the club directors start rethinking their tryouts this year and next in for an orderly transition? Do they see NXT as an outlier, or the direction that everyone is going? If the latter, do they avoid NXT events and wait until last minute to implement age-based teams?
Bravo for NXT for showing some leadership in this area. An overlooked aspect of this is where grade based team started - which is NY. Before 2013 there were zero youth clubs that were grade down here in MD/DC/VA. Even Crabs, Madlax, FCA, Looneys, Hawks etc were U11,13,15 . Crabs was one of the last to change. Not sure why or when NY teams went grade since it's to your disadvantage. But when Turtle 2018 2019 express, 2020 crush etc started showing up and destroying teams at what had been rec tournaments, clubs down here started organizing by grade as well. Then the hoco club league started and was grade based so all teams followed. Here's my point. Since NY has the most teams and have the most willingness to travel, if they all switched to single year U9,10,11,12 etc with US Lax 9/1 cutoff and only went to tournaments with the age cutoffs - this whole thing would turn. Tourney organizers follow the money and NY participation is key. I'm talking youth only. HS never changing. Also probably have to skip u14 and just have u15 for 8th grade. But at least that would get majority of youth with proper age segmentation. Just one guys opinion.
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