US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Boys 2027 Grads - Mid Atlantic Region

[Censored] summary.
This may be applicable when the boys are young men, in HS, etc. but to teach your son you have to cheat in the youth level to get ahead makes you a POS.
Nothing like watching Mortimore & Randolph's 15yr old thump on 13yr old's.

It's actually a very true and accurate summary. Lacrosse is not a meritocracy, and neither are most things in life.

My son lost his spot on a national team to a double holdback and a single holdback, both from out of state. I mean oh well? Now....how it was handled was embarrassing on the club's part. But the decision was fine, and my kid gets it too.

What it means to the kids who are heldback? My son's experience with them is that they feel pretty embarrassed by it except when they are out on the field, being awesome. The decision was made by their parents. The parents usually are evasive about it as well. They know it's a [Censored] move. Their kids know too. How is that different than any other type of entitled parenting, like legacy admissions to college, getting a $60K job at your parents' business the day you graduate college, having someone else pay your college tuition, etc?

When is it going to be fair? Never.

NP Mark!

You lost credibility when you said lost a spot on a national team to an out of state kid.

There are no out of state kids on national teams.

You just feel entitled to a spot for some reason. You are as big a part of the problem with lacrosse as anyone.
Entitled parents raising entitled kids crying when they don’t get their way.

The only problem with youth club lacrosse are weirdos that play their kids down. That is it. That is the one and only problem. The clubs and tourneys that encourage this weird behavior is what is limiting the sport.

It’s legal as it stands now.
But it’s certainly limiting participation in the sport overall.
Soccer does few things right, but the division of talent and teams are usually pretty good with the age based system they use. There’s a place for every talent level and the good kids play up in age, not down.

You bring up a good point. Why don’t more kids play up? I would think that would be the best way to really get better. The game is so much faster as you move up the grades.

The truly elite players who are on age don’t care about playing with or against holdbacks. Just saying.

Your reading comprehension skills are...Chesapeake HS vintage, maybe 1995?

Nobody's entitled to anything. Certainly not a spot on any competitive team at work, school or sports. Which my post made clear. And the fact is that most people who clamor for "MeRiToCrAcY" started on 3rd base anyway.

Cmon CHS Cougars, three roars for reading riting and recidivism!!! raawwwwwr

Someone who works full time in corporate sports development could probably explain how the proliferation of club play in soccer didn't decimate the rec leagues (or CYO soccer) the same way that the proliferation of club lax did to rec lax.

It maybe speaks to the monumental phhhhhhhhht of MYLA (and the crater left behind) because if rec "mega councils" like that had any strength, they can stipulate certain things. I have a son who plays baseball, and if you play "club rec" or "travel" ball, you're required to also play on the regular rec team, to make sure the rec leagues can field teams and hold games "for everybody." Annoying in terms of logistics but I think it was a good move "for the sport." Also gave my son, who was #6 on the travel team batting order, to bat leadoff 1-2x per week with the rec kids. Nothing wrong with that.

I fully support USL but I don't think they really have the leverage or hooks to enforce stuff like that.

The "only problem"? Parents of kids who are not excelling will always find a problem to complain about.

Honest yes or no:

Was your son better than the two players you say “took his spot?”

Couldn’t agree more. However is it possible that most if those kids hit puberty early?

This is true. My son has never complained about playing older kids. Only parents have issue with holdbacks. Next year your kids are going to see older kids so I don't see the big deal. There isn’t that big of skill difference some kids that held back don’t even stand out that much.

He was not, which, for the 4th? time? I say "nobody's entitled to anything." Kid made another national roster a month later. And plays up a year freelancing for other clubs, in addition to his regular club. Pretty sure he'll be OK.

I'll try to dense it down to Baltimore Sun readership (4th grade equivalent) since clearly that is what's required for you:

15 year old more bigger than 13 year old.
Make 13 year old look small and slow.
No call back
Not fair but not break rules.
Life go on.
Oh well.

That is fundamentally untrue.......most of the time. The list of coaches and club directors who continue to late start / hold back their kids continues to get longer and longer. They know that assuming the holdback player was already "elite" on age, that he'll dominate a year down.......through HS in many (but not all) cases. When is the last time an on-age player was the #1 recruit? (I think there was a debate about Spallina, and it ultimately came out that he was a "late start" by a year, who played on-age through 9th, and dropped to "on-class" in 10th grade).

And I can concur (my son has fun playing up) that elite players don't blink (much) about playing against older kids. But usually that's because those elite kids are on elite teams who also have holdbacks.

I think this idea should continue to be picked apart because club coaches are obsessed with big, confident, disruptive players and guess who that tends to favor? Usually the oldest kids on the field. Think that goes away in 9th grade? How many freshman in the entire MIAA-A made varsity rosters? Maybe 12 out of 500+ who tried out? When it comes down to your 14 year old son and 3x 18-20 year olds at the same position on or about March 1, 2024, who do you think will be picked? If your son doesn't complain about that just a little bit, he's a robot...or he's relieved, hoping it's his off-ramp out of lax.

This all started because you said loss a spot to an out of state kid on a national team. Which is completely nonsensical.

Awesome.
The holdback parents/coaches/directors will still try to convince us all that its not a big deal and it won't make that much of a difference.

If the kids are currently in the 8th grade, they are not breaking any rules. Rail on, over and over, but that is the current system. I didn't say it was right, and I am not justifying it.

Why do the people complaining about holdbacks say that 15 year olds are playing against 13 year olds? Personally I don’t think a one year difference is that big a deal but two years is a lot. Are they complaining about double holdbacks? Or are their sons playing up and then running into a two year age gap due to holdbacks in the upper division?

Birthdates for single year holdbacks are between 9/1/2007 and 8/31/2008. On age 2027 are 9/1/2008 to 8/31/2009. With holdbacks you have the possibility of a full 2 year difference between any two players. This does result in a 13 y/o sometimes having to compete with a 15 y/o.

I understand the holdback rationale to be older during your HS sophomore year. I'll never understand why the parents think having their 15 y/o compete against a 13 y/o helps their development though.

I can't believe this is a real question. Currently, any kid in 8th grade and born after August 31 of 2007 is eligible to play high school varsity sports. The recommended age for 8th grade and in US Lacrosse is for kids born after August 31 of 2008 - August 31, 2009. This means there are current 8th graders who have already turned 15 playing against 13 year olds in 8th grade.

The problem gets worse as there are young men born born prior to August 31 of 2007. These young men are 15 now and will be turning 16 before entering high school. They will be ineligible to play varsity sports their senior year of high school (unless they go to a MIAA school). In the rare case, they could be 3 years older than kids on the same playing field. Historically, there will be 6-10 of these young men in HoCo this spring.

If you hear of a kid transferring to a boarding school and their parents aren't military or state department, there's a good chance they are a double holdback. The travel tournaments are filled with players who are either currently in the grade higher or the parents saying their kid is reclassig in the next school year.

The WSL has a hard age limit of 9/1. The Circuit has a softer limit of 6/1 with 3 roster exceptions older than 6/1. Many legacy clubs skipped those tournaments because they couldn't even field a team and didn't want to "out" their rosters. Watching those tournaments it was obvious how pervasive the problem is by comparing the physical sizes of those teams to teams in travel tournaments.

What's the point of the softer limit? Why not just follow the WSYL model?
Why are they still making exceptions for older kids playing down?
I guess I just don't understand the logic.

By the way, The Circuit also has a hard upper limit of 1/1 2008 so the 3 exceptions have to be born in 2008. The Circuit had a real problem. They had clubs who didn't want any upper limit at all and a bunch who wanted to reign it in because even their summer birthday rosters couldn't compete against early 2008 and 2007 birthdays. Some of the teams were a little deeper so they were able to bump players up from lower classes. Some had such a history of playing with older players and mercenaries that they fell away or did very poorly at the first tournament because those teams couldn't stack the roster. This is what they did to put on the events this year. Who knows if they will make it to year 2.

The WSL model has struggled over the years and is now essentially a NE tournament. Many clubs from around the country just don't want to change their model to participate. The guys putting on WSL did a great job in getting it back up.

Maybe a compromise for the pre-first summer birthday boys? Either way, 8/31 or 6/1, just set a date and lets be done with it. The 3 exceptions the Circuit did was dense. No exceptions, set a hard date and implement it for the 2023-2024 season to give clubs a little time to shift players to the appropriate team.

With this system it just seems like a money grab. The teams with the oldest kids will dominate.


Yea they did. Kudos to them for sticking to on age/100 mile radius.
Lots of 5th/6th grade kids are going to have to play this summer.

The circuit did it because they had to. It’s a tournament. Ultimately the teams who enter it dictate the rules. They have to go with what the clubs said.

I guess there are people here who don't know the story. The Circuit came about because the owners of US Club Nationals, Legacy and MadLax, were tired of the national teams entering and winning their tournaments, specifically The Nationals. They decided to restrict entry and not just from The Nationals. The Nationals spear-headed the attempt to have an alternative and they came up with The Circuit. If you want to criticize The Circuit you better despise Club Nationals and like tournaments. They have zero age restrictions and zero class verifications. This includes the mighty HoCo where there will be a large number of 2007 birthdays playing in the 8th grade division.

Gross.

If you are referring to the nationals run by G I would find it very interesting to hear he would push for age base considering how many hold back were on his original good 27 team when they beat madlax at the Florida tournament.

ML and a few other tournament organizers (though, mostly on the lower level even below Aloha) typically have an "allowance" towards the very end of the list of tournament rules that if the coach considers their club to be a "community based lacrosse team" (no definition given for what that means), instead of entering their team according to the oldest grad year on their roster, they are allowed to "average out" the grad years.

Obviously the rule is geared towards low end, low resources rec club teams from outside of MD. Or is it?

What do you consider “large numbers?”
I am 100% against holdbacks.

Don't forget that the Nationals were barred from entering the Club Nationals tournament because they were caught fielding kids who played for other teams in the same tournament. It wasn't the first time they did it - or the last. Nationals did the same thing at the 2022 Future Champions tournament. They had several kids play for both their A and B teams, and even one kid who played for 3 teams in the tournament - his home club team and both the Nationals A and B teams. In their defense (but not really), their A and B team only had 13 or 14 kids each - but that was because the owner got greedy and tried to create two "equal" 2027 teams and ended up with too many kids for one team but not enough for two teams.

There have been and are some really good kids who have played for the Nationals, but nothing Nationals does is for "the good of the game", and I highly doubt they were initiating any kind of age limits for the Circuit. Most likely they just acquiesced in an effort to lure other clubs into the Circuit, and they were also likely the group advocating for the 3 exceptions rule.

BTW, what ever happened to the lawsuit the Nationals brought against Madlax owner accusing him of “racial bias?” That went quiet pretty quickly… was there an outcome other than the lawsuit being dropped as frivolous?

you mean the team that cheated with players borrowed from other teams at the same event?

Who has heard of NVYLL? for those who have not, it is a rec league in Northern Virginia. It is where virtually every HoCo players who lives in Virginia got their start, and the majority of Virginia HoCo players continue to play both rec and travel for their entire youth career. Compared to HoCo the quality of rec play is very uneven, but the league is extremely well run. There are two features of this league worth mentioning here:

First, it is age based, but the brackets are two years, so players routinely go against opponents a year apart, and up to two years apart. They have A and B divisions, so that student 12 year old's are not feeding on weak 11 year old's. But if a player in the younger half of the age bracket is chosen for an A team and accepts the roster spot (they always do), then he will be playing with and against kids 1 to 2 years older. So the parents on this Board who complain about holdbacks should think about that - if your on age player does not have the size or desire (or ability) to compete against kids a year older, just play in a lower division; nobody is forcing him to play in HoCo elite. Great players a year apart (up to two years) in age have been competing against each other in rec forever and it is not an issue.

Second, before every NVYLL game the head coaches exchange rosters. Failure to do so is an automatic forfeit, and coaches take it seriously and hand them over without any BS. The exchange roster has every player's name and jersey number. Plus, every coach is required to carry in his/her bag a more detailed roster that contains more info, including birth dates and home address (because teams are based on residence) and must show it on request. If one team finds out that another has an illegal player and turns them in, it is dealt with swiftly and fairly. (meaning that the offending team is very sorry). Why not have that rule in HoCo and in travel tournaments?

HoCo and MOST tournaments are not inclined to go age based or do anything to alienate the big MD clubs.

Salty madlax mom is back!

Like beating Madlax is newsworthy

Good point. If parents feel that strongly about their kid playing against older boys, they can always play in a lower division where there aren’t as many holdbacks.