US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Crabs Lacrosse / Baltimore Lacrosse Club

Wait a minute - so you are saying the kids on 2019 - that played on 2020 vs. T91 are back playing on 2019?

Id love to see the rosters. How do we get them?

Good point, I guess they are so good that they "play up"! Ha!

The key word you used is presumably. The fact is that you have no damn idea any of these kids situations you just presume they must have cheated to have beaten Crush. 2 of the kids that played were in 7th grade this year but play up on 2019. The other did not got to pre 1st. So I presune you can now understand?

I would think Crush would have been appreciative of the Crabs being able to really challenge them. Tough competition only makes you better in the long run. Blowing out teams has to get boring after a while...

I'm from Maryland and see the Crabs play on a regular basis. Everyone that is not affiliated with the Crabs organization but is involved in youth lacrosse knows how they operate. I don't believe for one minute given the Crabs MO that if a kid is that talented he is playing up a grade. The whole Crabs/Boys Latin approach is to hold the best players back so they excel against the younger kids. The 2020 team is full of hold backs and so is the 2019 team. Let's call a spade a spade or in this case a cheater a cheater.

And if you believe that, I've got another good one for you!

Funny since we have already established that at least three kids are repeating eighth grade in addition to any current kids who may already have been held back.

This is not the forum to publicly mention names or numbers of players and their personal history but you should not presume people are not aware of the facts. And yes, to answer your question Crabs would have to "cheat" to beat T91 and they knew it going into the game. T91 is more skilled but unfortunately at the middle school level, size is a big factor and the older kids allowed Crabs to just barely win the game. Crabs has got to be very busy right now looking for guest players to supplement their 2020 in order to actually meet the age requirements for Denver.

Competition or not, nobody likes playing cheaters.

Are you serious? Crabs trying to justify what they did by giving the tough competition line to the nation's #1 2020 team. There is a huge difference between being challenged and an opposing team cheating to win a championship game in a competitive tournament. T91 could have chosen to play up in the 2019 bracket as they regularly do but they did not and deserved to play in their own age group. Them choosing their correct bracket and being sandbagged by a 2020 team full of older kids with additional players being brought in took that choice from them. Crabs does not get to force their opponents to play up just so they can avoid losing.

But they didn't play in an age based division. They played in a grade based

Ha, funny. Unfortunately not all were in the correct grade!

Yes, they were. If they weren't, their team would have been disqualified.

The kids on that team are all going to be in the class of 2019 this fall (or younger). They didn't break any rules. Get over it.

Yep, that's what we've been saying - they are 2019s, finally we agree.

Saying "if we did something wrong, we would have been disqualified" is pretty lame. If tournaments actually enforced the rules that they published that would have been the case.

We know what you did, you know what you did, as do our sons. Nothing else to say here.

I know for a fact, because my son knows them, and played against them in MIAA 8th Grade Lacrosse Games THIS YEAR, that at least two of the players at Beach Lax had just completed 8th grade. It's an inexcusable and classless move to have those players play for the 2020 team. Quit trying to create a scenario where this is acceptable because there isn't one. If you can't compete in your own age group, find another program that is better suited to your abilities.

I live in Maryland and have three boys that have all played rec ball, then travel ball and then onto High School and College. They have several friends that have been held back. If my kids had attended private school, I might have been tempted to hold them back. They attended public school and therefore we did not. I am not arguing the theory or practice of holding kids back. The Crabs may not have broken any rules, but what they did was wrong. The kids tryout or are selected in late summer for the fall,spring and summer seasons. The boys that are on the 2019 team should have stayed with the 2019 team until new teams are established. If they finished the summer with their spring team and then were added to the 2020 roster in the, people would still complain(and it is their right to do so just like it is your right to hold your kid back), but I don't think you would have the uproar that you have. They didn't violate the letter of the rule, but they sure as [lacrosse] violated the spirit of it and what they did at a Youth Summer Lacrosse Tournament was simply in the spirit of the game wrong. I think to simply dismiss it, without putting yourself in the other person's shoes is also wrong. The argument's about this kid being younger and that kid being in this grade or that grade don't hold weight. They were 2019's in May and should be 2019's until the end of the summer season.

There was obviously a typo in that post. No rules were broken. Those kids are in the Class of 2020. I'm assuming your team lost to them and you are still butt hurt over it.

Agreed. The kids that tried out and were chosen for the 2020 team should be the players on the field until new 2020 try outs are held . Crabs hurt their own name by hurting the kids that they benched so older kids not on their 2014-2015 team can take their spots. May not have been illegal but sure says something about how the Crabs coach feels about honor, and his players that HE chose for this years team. Wake up parents- don't let your kids be treated like that. Look at their championship picture- do your kids look happy ? NOT the ones that didn't play!!! Terrible coaching decision based on coaches ego , business and not on the spirit of lacrosse and for the spirits of your CURRENT 2020 roster.

I really hope insurance companies slap an age limit to their policies, something which is being pushed right now as they don't want to be paying out huge fines because certain coaches play older kids with younger kids. I wonder what happens to the reclassified kids? They lost their spot on their old teams, can't play with younger kids anymore and their skills probably didn't improve as much as they could have playing with their own peers. The day might not be soon , but sure enough this will happen. Just like the clubs being in it for money- the insurance companies are in it for the money. There will be a day that these clubs will find kids stuck on limbo.

Good luck to the kids that lose their roster spot to older kids playing down. May you outshine those kids with honor, grace and integrity. It will all even out in a year or two when puberty levels things out, if not the insurance companies before then!

Get over it. Ryan McClernan's final line of every least email to parents who have some issue or question to him about the program. I still have mine. Funny how that is always the last word and the last instant the kids whose parents get that last email. Crabs owner = Madlax owner. Nice to see he is still spending time in every day in his own words "crushing web sites". Way to go.

If the Crush bring their whole roster to Denver they will be cheating the 5/1 age cut off. But this will not be surprising as they have been winning games all along doing this and trying to deflect it away from them and on to other teams.

Actually, they should be all be in the class of 2020 this fall or younger. Whoops...slight typo??

Despite your humorous slip... it is still wrong. It is not fall yet so "This fall" logic is flawed. The players were in the class of 2019 for the school year that has not ended in Maryland yet. They are not considered 2020 until they actually attend school with 2020s. They should have been disqualified but we all know that never happens because money talks. To the rest of us, character talks louder.

Guess when you have been saying they are 2019 for years it is hard to suddenly start saying 2020. The 2020 Crabs will forever be tainted by someone's bad decision. Bad enough the large number of hold backs on every Crabs team but to openly cheat to beat the #1 team was bound to get noticed.

Nice try.

"No rules were broken" - Keep telling yourself that, and we'll keep pointing out the truth.

"7. Placement on a grade based team (2018AA, 2019AA, 2020AA and 2021AA) is dictated by the highest grade of any player on the team."

Shame on Crabs for bending the rules, bigger issue is Beach lax allowing it to occur, and even bigger issue is US LAX have no back bone and failing to govern their own sport.

We as consumers of club lacrosse need to put pressure on our clubs and the tournaments our kids participate in. If big clubs stop participating in these tournaments things will change!

The tournament directors can simply fix this problem by adding the language "grade just completed" to their rules/eligibility section. There is not bending that or misinterpreting that. Although Crabs would probably say we are not cheating we just aren't following the rules.

Madlax is even worse. They have a kid who finished his freshman year of HS and now he is playing with kids who just finished 8th (their 2019 team).

That's exactly the same, kids are just one year older. Madlax is not a factor in 2020, when they start showing up in the finals of tournaments with a boatload of holdbacks we'll call them on it too.

That's a stupid reply. We should only decry holdbacks for teams that win championships? If a team has multiple holdbacks and kids get hurt, that's ok as long as they're not in the championship game?

Of course not, but I have no experience with Madlax holdbacks so I don't have any context from which to comment. Also, this is the crabs forum, yet someone keeps bringing up Madlax, trying to divert attention away from the crabs I guess. If it makes you happy I'll go post something in their forum too.

Saw this on another board. It is from US Lacrosse's insurance company:


Thank you for your recent email regarding reclassification of players in youth lacrosse. We are in regular communication with US Lacrosse on matters of safety and they have proven to be both proactive and effective at addressing evolving issues. The issue you addressed, is one such issue and it is a growing concern throughout youth sports, not just Lacrosse. Unfortunately, participants, parents, and others see reclassification as a means for players to gain an academic and/or athletic advantage and increase their potential (like recruitment by colleges as an example). US Lacrosse is actively pursuing a strategy that will establish age-based player segmentation guidelines (rather than grade based) and be supported by an age verification process incorporated into its membership application transaction. It hopes to conduct a pilot program this summer. It is possible that future sanctioning of events will be conditioned on the adoption of these best practices (age based player segmentation guidelines and age verification) and that the levels of insurance coverage may differ based upon compliance. As you can see, US Lacrosse is working diligently to address this issue. If you would like additional information about these initiatives, please don’t hesitate to reach out to US Lacrosse and Dr. Bruce Griffin, Director of Health & Safety at BGriffin@uslacrosse.org. Thanks again for contacting us and I hope this helps alleviate your concern.

The easy solution is grade based with an age part applied similar to the guideline the World Series of lacrosse is using 2020 but also born after xx/xx/201x

Reply I got from US Lax

US Lacrosse promotes single age groupings as the best practice for youth lacrosse. Sometimes this is not possible due to a lack of players in a certain area and sometimes it is done for a competitive advantage. Children of the same age are generally of similar physical and mental ability. I would encourage you to contact your league or club to adopt the US Lacrosse recommendation of grouping by a single years, like U10, U11 and U12. As the lacrosse consumer you have the power to tell the market what you prefer as the person funding your son.

You may be interested to know that US Lacrosse will be making an effort for age verification and event sanctioning which will help with some of this issue. Please see the link below.

By no means is this a comment to criticize the efforts of Dr. Brown and USL, but aren't these just repeats of the line USL has already taken? In 2014 USL published "golden stick" best practices. This summarized to stating that USL sanctioned events should be age based by calendar year. The new thing being added now is that USL will pilot age verification, which basically means kids show their USL member card at events or register using them like soccer has done.

All of this effort and the lacrosse tradesmen the laughed at it in 2014 and likely are howling still. Are lacrosse parents organized and motivated enough to go off and do organize their own leagues, events and do teams? Of course not. Is anything stopping the lacrosse trade from opting out and doing self insured events not sanctioned by USL? Of course not. The status quo is stuck in the mud no different from a national political debate over [fill in blank] social welfare program. I salute USL for making such efforts, but as a parent we can't just leave a frustration at their feet for all that is wrong here knowing they can't control it. Obama fan or no, we can't be critical of him for not deciding to just put his beliefs into law...as the congress and senate and....will need to be part of the process.

An additional approach might be to contact the insurers of grade based events. If a petition of parents signed a letter stating "we will move adverse to you as a class action" if a kid is debilitated on the field at an event maybe that would cut the lacrosse trade off at the pass. This grade based thing hasn't resulted in a revolt or a boycott. In fact summer tournaments and club fees today are on average more than double what they were 3 years ago. My kids played at $700 a season in 2012, and each are easily in the over $1500 a season and one is over $2000. Tournaments that were $1500 a 2 day weekend for a team to register are now $1500-$2500 PER DAY at those same events. It's pretty simple people, if the lacrosse tournament guys can't insure they are out of business exactly like a Bear Stearns or a Drexel Burnham were when the Fed didn't fund them overnight on a given day. You want this to end? Make it so they can't insure these events. Then they will fold and do age based teams, leagues and events in an instant to keep the cash coming.

Are there any major tournaments not sanctioned by US Lacrosse?

[quote=Anonymous]Are there any major tournaments not sanctioned by US Lacrosse? [/quot

Yes, basically all of them. You know it isn't sanctioned when your registration does not require a USL number. I can't remember the last time I needed one for my sons and they go to major tournaments including crabs ones.

Just had a conversation with some crabs parents today, they advised that the crabs organization asked them as well as a few other parents to hold back their sons for next years team.

The club is asking parents to do this?

Of course they did. Stop making things up. Crabs has never asked a parent to spend an extra $25k to have their kids repeat a grade. Not to mention that it's far too late to even do this at this point. You can't decide in June that you are going to move your kid to a new MIAA school to repeat a grade. Nice try though

Didn't say when the question was posed to the parents. But, it did happen!

Keep making excuses and defending and organization that lacks integrity and morals.

Crabs 2021 got beat by Annapolis Hawks today - better get more holdback!