No justification for this at youth level .. no matter how hard the holdback apologists try. [/quote]
Yo Buffy, what do you and your MD cheater friends have to say about such common sense logic, by your fellow Marylander? Makes you feel like a real person bag, right?
Do you believe that your cheater league calls 7th grade lacrosse players 13 and 14 year olds??? Wake up call... 7th graders are suppose to be 12 and 13 year olds! My kid Luigi is in 7th grade and he is 12 years old and won't be 13 until September. What does your cheater league have to say about that? He's a 6th grader in their eye's, right?
You people are corrupt to the core. And to think, your most important job as a parent is to teach your kid right from wrong, through your words and deeds. Simply shameful what you and people like you are teaching your youngsters.
~Sal from Long Island
[/quote]
Sal -
As always good to hear from you, you seem especially upset in your post above, I hope everything is OK with you. I do keep wondering though why you cannot answer a simple question for me, why do you care about MD lacrosse so much? In the grand scheme of things we don't play each other that much, most normal human beings don't put too much stock in 7th grade rankings for any sport, and finally there is an event called the WSYL which is age based so that for those people who care about having the best 7th grade team in the world at something you have it. As I have said sincerely many times before I wish all the WSYL players good luck and I am sure it will be a great experience for the kids and their families.
Let me also be upfront again about where I stand on things. I have an "elite" player who is on age. I have no issues with the summer "holdback" but am not a fan of the "double holdback" as it puts my child at a real disadvantage in terms of age but end of the day fighting through challenges tends to build a better person. I am also not an apologist as I tend to believe that most parents are not inherently evil and are trying to do what is in the best interest of their child when making these decisions, a good percentage of which are made when a kid is going into K (remember entry age requirements for MD and NY are different). I am just trying to put things in a little bit of perspective (entry into elite high schools, cheaper to holdback in middle school, summer birthdays, assumption it will lead to better college prospects - see next paragraph, etc.). Finally, I (or any parent in MD lacrosse) do not get to make the rules by which we play so what do you suggest we do? I am a huge supporter of "age based" systems at the youth sports level and will heartily support any effort to get back to this in MD lacrosse but until that time I am also not going to moan about it like a little female dog (getting a little saucy there, tough day at work, I apologize). End of the day I do not like the trends I see in holding back but I also am not in a position to judge parents who I know nothing about or what their motivations are. You believe they are evil and unjustified, I tend to think the issue is a little more complicated than that with strong incentives to make holding back a rational decision.
There have been some interesting posts on the benefit, or lack thereof, of the holdback, especially the post above on u19 team. Being an analytical person and having 15 minutes between my squash matches I decided to try and bring some facts to the table. Took a look through the rosters of the 16 teams in the NCAA tournament this year and only a couple have birthdates so the sample size is not huge but I am guessing somewhat representative (this could be a wrong assumption). In looking at the Freshman and Sophomore classes (kids closer to when MD club went grade vs. age based which I think was about four years ago) and taking out anyone listed as "redshirt" we see the following: 1) Average and median age on Sept. 1 of their Freshman year was ~18.9, you would expect this to be 18.5 with an average distribution of birthdays so about 4/5 months older than you would expect. 2) 40% of the kids were "LI Holdbacks", on age but Sept-Dec birthday, 30% were Holdbacks, born before Sept 1 and 30% were "LI on Age", born Jan-Sept. Interesting enough the one NY school in the sample skewed more LI on Age and Holdback. Take what you want from this but in general a kid playing at a top DI programs is likely older than a pure age based system would dictate, the largest group of kids fell into that fall-Dec birth range and for every LI on Age there was one Holdback. Since MD only went grade based a few years ago it will be the classes coming into college in the next couple of years which will actually show if there is any benefit.
Sal I do implore you to look up the word "cheater", in the words of Inigo Montoya, "you keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means."
One final note since you decided to take the really low road with your final statement I will simply respond that based on the behavior I have seen from LI parents at tournaments it is laughable you have the nerve to talk about "shameful" and "what you are teaching your youngsters". That being said always happy to continue the debate but I do implore you to come up with something a little better than "my son 12, your son 16, you bad, me good" over and over again, at least put a little effort into it.
Your loving friend, Buff (I like the new LI version of my name)
