Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
You should use birth year, the entire year.
Jan 1 - December 31. So if you are born anytime in 2005 you are a 2024, etc.

That's not how it works. My son who was born spring 2005 is a 2023. He did not start school early, he is not playing up, he is on grade for his age and currently a junior in high school. Class of 2023 across the country is considered to be dob 9/1/2004 - 8/31/2005, give or take depending on exact cutoff for your state's public schools. Private schools move the goal posts to maintain a competitive edge. First it was having younger kids in the class (i.e. summer birthdays, especially boys) do a pre-K or pre-first year. Then affluent public school parents caught on and started doing the same thing, so private schools start holding back the spring and summer birthdays, and on it goes. Some of these kids then redshirt again before high school or by doing a PG year. To each his own, but parents should quit trying to normalize it to make themselves feel better. Most people understand the situation with kids who barely make the cutoff waiting a way to start K or 1st, but it's gone way beyond that. Sometimes kids do have opportunities to attend boarding school or do a gap year where redshirting makes sense, so not really fair to bash them all equally, but it is amazing seeing how much older many top rated lax players are than my own 2023.

Thank you for very clearly spelling that out for everyone! Private schools started all this by trying to gain an edge for their students. So true! It’s become a hot mess and it’s giving wealthy kids unfair advantages in the sport. It Should be addressed by the sport. Especially, as they say they are working to make it a more inclusive sport for all? It’s becoming more elitist everyday the way it is now.

Unfortunately Privates have been doing this for years. The only difference now then years ago, Lacrosse was age at youth and even by age for clubs. The Crabs years ago ( less than 10 years) had U15 and U13. Really good on age teams. No one really cared since youth was by age and HS was by grade. Frankly no one besides privates understood what I was talking about years ago when it came to prefirst .

Now with Clubs going grade, privates have upped the anti like the poster says above. All on age parents are saying WT?, how can this be fair at youth. And they are right.

That's how it was when my oldest played - U13 and U15. He was younger for his age and had some private school kids on his team born within a month of him but a grade below. Club required they play with their age back then. Couple of the kids "playing up" then took a PG year after high school. My oldest is about to get his degree and they are now 21 year old sophomores in college. They were able to decommit and trade up to better lax programs, so I guess it paid off. The best of the best stand out even against older kids, but other players get pushed out if they don't reclass. Won't change until college coaches stop rewarding it.