The age versus grade discussion was a big topic at Kellenberg yesterday - here are a few thoughts:
1. 2018 LI club teams are basically grade based. TLI has a handful of 9th graders, but they are young ninth graders. Express apparently has a couple of ninth graders too. Whether they do or don't isn't my point - my point is that when 91/TLI/Express play, kids are basically the same age; the disputes can be measured in months and whether someone stayed back by a month or two. It's one of the best things about LI lax - it is a pretty fair playing field on the issue of age.
2. The rest of the lax world - Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston to name three spots - is also grade based, but many of those kids go to private schools and stay back a year or start formal schooling later. Anyone who watched the 8th grade Dukes team play any of the other teams yesterday could have seen this. Apparently there are four 1998 birthdate 8th graders on that team. They were very mature and much larger than Express, 91 or Superstar - it was really obvious.
3. US Lacrosse may want age based lacrosse, but the world is going grade based. College coaches don't care how old you are - they care what grade you're in.
4. So what does it mean? Well, if you play for a LI club team, be prepared to be playing against older kids when you leave the island. The age discrepancies between the big LI clubs are way less than they are between LI clubs and those of other metropolitan areas. When LI clubs play against Dukes, Crabs and Laxachusetts they are playing against older kids, and it's only going to get worse.
1.
Originally Posted by Anonymous
This conversation is very repetitive but always entertaining
Rules governing US Lacrosse - U-14 does not exist but often U-15B is assumed to be U-14
Age based event - grade does not matter and team is placed based on age of oldest player
Grade based event - grade does not matter team is placed based on highest grade of its players
Informal playday - coaches have evaluated each other's squads and agree that the scrimmaging is in the best interest of the participants of both teams (perhaps with knowledge of each other's irregular roster players)
In all events tournament directors have accountability to enforce rules and allowance to slightly bend them. Within reason this happens everywhere (especially Maryland - LOL) - once a tournament director decides it is okay for a given team to play in a given bracket, that team is no longer playing down regardless of what the bracket is called.
Alternatively, if a club or parent were to misrepresent the age and/or grade of their players and work outside the rules, they are creating an unsafe playing field and opening themselves up to accuastions of fraud and in the extreme reckless endangerment
It will only get worse until lacrosse goes strictly by birthdate. Then, it will get much much better. Other sports are strictly age based, and it works just fine. My son will be out of this ridiculous system by then, but it would be great to see the reaction from that crop of hold-back parents ... "it's not fair". Whaaaaaah.
Picture if "age only" restrictions materialized tomorrow, with no grandfathering. Where would the 1998 and early-1999 birthdate hold-back 2018/8th graders be able to play? They would be off any current 2018 team for sure, and the 1998s may not even qualify for a 2017 team. How would these "superstar" 8th graders fare against HS Freshmen? Against Sophomores?
Also, by the time these "standouts" are HS juniors (and playing varsity lacrosse), they would not qualify for any age based club team. There would be no home for the 19 year old junior in "youth" summer lacrosse. They would effectively be playing ball for the high school in their junior and senior years, and nowhere else. And maybe not even there -- although I don't see high schools going to strictly age based, but who knows.
