holdbacks, not on age is cheating and sad in youth sports. accept it and move on.
Is it sad? Yes. Is it "gaming the system?" Probably.
Is it cheating? No. The rules for HoCo clearly state it is a grade-based league. Get over it.
Agree, while it is completely gaming the system, unfair to many players and goes against just about everything youth sports stands for...it isnt against the rules as the Howard County Recreation Department wrote them up. Howard Country Recreation should have a special place in Maryland lacrosse Hall of Shame.
If the league should be in the hall of shame, where does that leave your son's club? I agree with your sentiment about holdbacks gaming the system, but are you saying that there is a club out there that prohibits holdbacks? If there are no U-age teams among the local clubs, implementing an age-based system in the HoCo league would be like the tail wagging the dog. I saw a very good player on my son's team, top 5 arguably at his position in MD, get cut because a handful of kids reclassed this year. He went from splitting time with another great player to left out in the cold because of reclassing. It's shameful, but the clubs allow it and I doubt a league has the clout to dictate how club teams should organize when there are so many other events that they participate in.
You must not know the history of how the HOCO league was started. Some idiot at age based MYLA decided to hook up with Howard County Recreation Department and start a Club league. It was to compete against age based NYPLL Club league.( NOW GONE) . Howard County Recreation due to influence of MIAA decided to go against everything they have done prior in their leagues, and go Grade base, not age. After that Clubs exploded and the race was on for prefirsts. Crabs had the advantage early. Seems like others have caught up now.
Only apologists for having select older kids play down think this is right. The majority know better. Not much anyone can do now. The majority will just watch as more and more hold their child back. Pretty sad for youth sports
That's funny. I agree that youth sports should be age-based. But do you really think MIAA coaches or administrators care how a youth league organized? Are they lobbying other sports to go grade-based? The hold-backs have been going on for years. Under the old U15 guidelines they just got a second year in u15 while non-holdbacks were off to HS. There's no benefit or difference as to when these kids are eligible for HS lacrosse now that they are grade based.
The reason Hoco went to grade is because all the clubs were going in that direction. The clubs were following the lead of clubs and tournaments up north which had been grade for some time. The irony is that grade based segmentation benefits MD-VA teams since our kids older even before hold backs because we have 9/1 school cutoff vs 12/1 in NY.
It's unfortunate the US Lacrosse can't dictate the age rules like other sports apparently do. I know they are trying with their own tournaments and there are a couple of event companies like NXT on board starting with the youngest groups. But USL can't force all tournaments to change or force clubs to play in age events. They way this changes is for NY clubs to all go by 9/1 cut-off and refuse to play in grade events. They have a competitive reason to do so and there are enough of them that they are a big enough market force to make the individual tournaments change. They love to travel. When the LI teams stop coming the tournaments dry up
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