After all the debates and bashing of MD reclassified kids, LI tough guys, etc. I thought I would put the UA underclass teams that have been posted to a test. If you are going to reply to this post with something snarky, don't bother. I admit I am a loser for doing this, but would rather pass time and kill my curiousity in this horrible hotel room doing this than being in the bar with MD lacrosse parents.

Without further adieu:

** In the data some kids did not report their class year, birthdate or either, so the percentage of population is kids who did report both class and d.o.b. LI has 4 missings, MidWest has 3, Philly has 2, Upstate NY has 1, West has 3. Baltimore and South had zero missings.

** Not all the UA teams are roster posted yet, and some have not had tryouts yet. I will update this data later for all the regions as they come in.

** There are two double holdback kids on UA underclass teams thus far; one from Midwest and one from West.

** There are 3 2017s qualified. One in Philly and two in LI.

** Shout out to the two LI 2017s each of whom are in the calendar year 1999 birthdate.

** Shout out to Marshall McGlove, a Maryland class of 2015 public school kid who made the Baltimore UA team. Marshall is the only November or December birth month kid in the data so far who is not a holdback kid. Bravo.

** I have been reminded that in some states, like California, the d.o.b. cutoff for grades is Sept 30th, and therefore kids who are old by a calendar quarter to their calendar birth-year class are not repeat kids. Those are just states with different calendar cuts for entering a school grade. It is notable a lot of the California kids who list out as calendar year holdbacks are not school year holdbacks because they had Oct, Nov or Dec birth months.

Conclusions:

1. LI walks the walk. Only two kids who are out of calendar year, or 10% of reporting d.o.b. UA team members. And one kid deserves an asterisk...his birth date was 12/30. If we grace that kid out it is only one kid on the LI team with a year ahead d.o.b.

2. The generalization that MD kids are overwhelmingly holdbacks is false. Sort of. "Only" 12 kids, or 50% of the reporting d.o.b. UA team members are holdbacks. The generalization that MD kids are double holdbacks is false, at least in this data.

3. Upstate NY sort of walks the walk. They are second place after LI with "only" 9 holdbacks, or 39% of the reporting d.o.b. UA team members are holdbacks.

4. West region UA team has 13 holdbacks, representing 62% of the reporting d.o.b. kids on roster. Again, the California school year dates asterisk above deserves some note.

5. Philly checks in with an abysmal 68% of UA underclass rostered kids who are holdbacks. 15 of the d.o.b reporting kids are holdbacks.

And, the "we really loved 8th grade...twice" award goes to....

6. It's a tie. Midwest and South regions statistically tie at a whopping 71% of the d.o.b reporting kids on the US underclass rosters who are holdbacks. 15 kids in the Midwest and a whopping 17 in the South.

We do have a few more contenders for the title...Jersey tryouts were yesterday and DC ones next week. DC might be a doozy boys. Some IAC schools won't admit 9th graders unless they have a drivers license picture ID.