I agree about food life lessons but pretty sure B team players don’t “always manage” to catch up. My experience with my son’s team, and the club teams a year or two higher, is the really good players tend to stay the really good players. Are there some late bloomers at the margins? Sure. Do some kids backtrack a bit? Also sure. But there aren’t a lot of MIAA and top public varsity starters who weren’t pretty darn good A players the whole way. Also if every team in Bmore is full of holdbacks, aren’t holdback kids always just a year than the kids who are a grade ahead? And obviously when they get to high school 1-3 years behind the other kids if there are tons of holdbacks? Either most everyone holds back, and there are no advantages, or it’s rare and there is one. Can’t be both.
nobody cares about kids playing older kids in high school. If your kid is playing older kids he obviously playing up, which is encouraged. However, Kids who should be juniors in high school and stayed back in pre-first then some other grade playing freshman on CLUB teams is flat out wrong. Programs outside of high school should be strictly birthday based, not graduation year. New York started this mess, now they are against it since their schools don't jive with most of the US.
