As a HoCo parent, I would love to see HoCo clean up the league. There is a simple, easy fix that will keep club owners happy, allow kids some flexibility to play with friends from school, protect the kids from injury, and protect the league from criticism and liability. All HoCo has to do is change one sentence of their bylaws & league rules to mirror what AAU has done for years. AAU knows what it is doing and has struck the perfect grade/age balance and HoCo should learn from AAU's lead.
HoCo's "club" bylaws current read: The Conference follows a grade based system based on the player's current grade level. Players who are participating in any high-school level program such as a high school freshman, JV-B, junior varsity, or varsity team is not eligible for the 8th grade division.
The only change that needs to be made is: The Conference follows a grade based system based on the player’s current grade level, but in order to play in the 8th grade division the player must not have turned 15 before beginning the 8th grade; to play in the 7th grade division the player must not have turned 14 before beginning the 7th grade; etc. Players who are participating in any high-school level program such as a high school freshman, JV-B, junior varsity, or varsity team is not eligible for the 8th grade division.
This simple rule change would allow kids to continue to play with their existing club team, unless they have been held-back more than once. Hopefully we can all agree that with summer birthdays, kids doing pre-K for non-lacrosse reasons, kids repeating grades for academic or admission reasons, there should be some flexibility for kids to play with their current grade, but there really is no reason to allow double-holdbacks to play in a youth league, even if it is grade based. Let's clean up the league and make it a more level, safer playing field for all.
So you grand solution to the holdback problem is to eliminate the double holdbacks, but holdbacks are fine?? Really?? By definition, that does nothing for the holdback issue.
You will always have kids that are older no matter what system you follow. If you use calendar year, or 9/1 age, then there will always be kids that are up to 364 days older. At least if you follow the AAU model, kids are in a tighter age range than they otherwise would be. It is the best of both worlds. You are never going to get clubs to go back to age based, so you are wasting your breath on that argument. That ship has sailed. Grade is much easier for clubs and recruiting. You don't have kids flip-flopping between age brackets. They just move up together and gel as a team. They stay with their friends from school and teammates from other grade based teams.
Rising 8th graders are 12 and 13. You’re saying it’s ok for the kid to be 15 on the 2nd day of school, of 8th grade. That makes him a year and a half older than many on age kids. FYI that’s a holdback!! The thing you’re trying to eliminate. Remember? You MD people have a serious addiction problem with holdbacks. Gotta ween yourself off the drug? How bout going cold turkey. Change that 15 to a 14 and play true on age like the rest of the world.
Sounds like you need to work on your reading comprehension and math. Go back and read the original email. If it helps read it really slowly. In HoCo area and most of the country the age cutoff is 9/1.
Hilarious..Yea..Lets let the one year holdbacks cheat, but Double Holdbacks..Sorry..Only ONE year of Cheating for You! LOL
