Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous


tournaments are following how the clubs are set-up. Maryland clubs followed how the LI clubs are set-up. If we're talking about youth teams it's about fairness and safety. The bottom line is that league and tournaments that offer grade A & B divisions give many teams as chance to find competitive brackets for their skill levels. And the age variances are a smaller window on average than with traditional 2yr age brackets. If you're going to throw out 13 yr old 8th grader playing vs 16 yr holdback I've not seen it. That's a double holdback and I believe that would extremely rare and there should some limit on ages. I have summer, spring & fall bday kids. We're public so no holdback even if we wanted to. Not trying to justify going to this system or keeping kids back for sports. But now were in it I'm not seeing where the crises is and I think most others don't either - whether their kids were held back or not. Until the outrage is more than a vocal group on internet forums than trend towards grade will continue. Personally I agree that single age brackets are the best and fairest. But I like the grade brackets over the 2 yr age brackets

And if we're talking about 9th grade up and the kids can't compete with older kids, then they are not ready to be recruited or play varsity lacrosse


My understanding of LI going grade base teams is due to Dec 1 school start date and USL Aug 31 age start date. Md school start date is the same as USL Aug 31. I may be wrong but it seems like LI going grade base gives them a DISADVANTAGE as the oldest child is DEC 1 birthday while Maryland oldest age base would be Sept 1. MD kids could be 3 months older ,,is this right?? With a few holdbacks on a MD grade base team vs grade base LI team this would even be more advantage for MD, 6 months plus older kids. Please chime in if I have this wrong. [/quote]

I don't think you have that last part wrong. Picking over kids being 3 months older is moot, but consider that with a Sept 1st trigger a MD holdback kid can be closer to two years older than one over a younger natural aged LI kid in his grade. You also noted that in public schools you can't go in for repeating grades for sports, so that means doing it is an investment in private school tuitions starting at 8th or 9th grade. Let's not waste time, nobody is repeating 10th or 11th grade for lacrosse reasons after most ships have sailed. So the holdback "advantage" is one obtainable only by wealthy kids. Prep schools love that because it is good for business. The MIAA and IAC schools didn't have 12.6 scholarships like it is a college and most of those places run over $30K a year. I maintain that is fine for HS play, but if you look at much larger more established sports like soccer it is age based all the way through for non-school. There are over 200 D1 scholarship soccer programs and over 150 D2 scholarship programs in soccer and that sport is not crying for reforms. Its fair and it works.

It is a cop out to say "well, go do your own age based club tournaments then" to parents of kids not advantaged by this system. How? Start another unhappy Daddy lacrosse club and hope people join in? There is no such thing as a recreation or club league in MD that has age based club events. If you have not seen a 13 year old get plowed by a 15 or 16 year old, then you weren't at any Hogan or Madlax tournaments this fall. We had one kid knocked out cold by a knee to the head at the faceoff X. There was nothing dirty at all about the play, but the injury was definitely exacerbated by the fact that this was a tiny 12 year old 7th grader playing on a 7th/8th team playing against a 6 foot and heavy muscled 8th grader who was obviously a holdback. That is one thing your analysis missed somewhat, which two-year age groups you don't have a chance of seeing a 12 year old out there with 15 year holds. With grade based blend teams -- 7th and 8th grade throw togethers where they have a "B" team with kids off the "A" grade based teams or have talented 7th graders playing up -- you will literally see it every day at tournaments in Maryland. This tiny 7th grader was on this team I noted because the coaches wanted to play him up to get him ready for playing up next summer at recruiting tournaments. Think about that, a 12 year old 7th grader was out there with the enthusiastic consent of the club and his parents and then this...a very serious concussion where he stays out of school lies in bed in the dark for 2 weeks.

It just isn't worth it. But hey, let's wait for the big one, right? We're all tough lacrosse parents. A tragedy on the field with a middle school kid. Lawyer up Ryan, when that comes around you will be one who well deserves the blame and I for one will be glad to see an outcome where you are held accountable.