Some intellectual honesty might help this discussion. I know this will get ripped - but I’ll bet there are a lot of people with similar stories and it hardly ever gets discussed. And I also know there are people doing extreme things deliberately for an advantage in this sport and others.
If you played lacrosse back 20+/- years ago, you probably have great friends and former teammates from college who likely live in that other place. Did they somehow become evil child abusing cheaters? Over time did they all become whining crybabies? Not likely. What is more likely is that they are sending their kids to school in the way their school system says is best (public or private). People don’t want their kid to be an outlier age wise either way. Is that really hard to understand? Would you swim against the stream if you lived in the other place – and throw out the advice or rules of your school of choice? Most of us are just trying to do what is best for our kids and having them fit in age wise at school seems pretty logical. Forget the nut job double hold-back, double pre-k. pre-pre-first people for a minute, they do enough to ruin this great sport and hi-jack the conversation.
Two of my college teammates and best friends live in MD. They have boys roughly same age as my oldest (few months max). My son is young for his grade by our standards. We are all really close and consider each other “family”. My son plays in one age bracket, their boys play (2) age brackets lower. Call me an exaggerator – this is fact. According to my friends, their boys are average age for their team. I see them at tournaments because their oldest boys play against my next oldest son. Fair? No. Who would really even argue that? Evil? No. Cheating? Again – No. In practical reality - it isn’t up to them. They sent their boys to school the way the schools told them they should in order to attend. Now - they play club lax which is organized by grade. To them, you sign up and tryout and it is based by grade and that is that. I can see their point. These aren’t crazies that did this for an advantage in sports, but they also are guys that don’t deny their sons are advantaged by this set-up. I know their boys really well - they are great kids, really good players who work hard on this game. Win or lose these boys would much rather be playing my their older similar aged "cousin" than battling it out with their little “cousin”.
My friends and I get it – youth results really don’t mean anything – sorry folks, but they really, really don’t. We don’t care about the T-shirts or trophies, but the kids actually do - especially earlier on. When you win one - you want to know you earned it and when you come up short you shouldn’t have a built in excuse. Point – this system sucks for all the kids. Up until at least U15 it should be totally age based. Easy to do and easy to enforce. Better for all the kids. Can’t happen soon enough. My littlest ones are doing NXT, Adrenaline and 3d events when the time comes – I’ll seek out teams that seek that out. Hopefully everyone is along for the ride well before that.
Once they are in HS you have a different conversation - still an advantage, but a 5’10” 175 lb. 16 year old can at least compete v. 6’0” 200 lb. 18 yr. old. Simply not true with 5’2” 110 lb 12 yr. old v. 5’8” 150 lb 14 year old (both of whom btw will likely end up being the same size at the end of the day). It just isn’t good all around.
Club Directors - be as “elite” or AAA+++ as you want, make all the kids buy matching underwear and pajamas for the hotels with logos emblazoned on the sides, charge whatever, make as much money selling the college dream to 9 year old kids as you can, but please do it age based at the youth level. Much better for all the kids and the sport as a whole. Parents - the money you spend on this stuff is not an “investment” it’s a childhood activity for your son. If you view it the other way it clouds your thinking and makes it about the destination not the journey.
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