Wait....what? What does morality have to do with your kid repeating the 8th grade? In hockey they have something called 'juniors" where kids go to play often for a couple of years prior to playing in colleges. Is that immoral? What about a PG year? You can disagree, but I think it's a parents' or kids choice. I'm not sure why it even affects anybody else. Some kids go through puberty and are almost full men at 13 while others haven't even started by age 15..they still play on the same team...and that's fair. Look at any middle school class, regardless of athletes, and these boys all look so different. It will even out soon and thankfully these colleges aren't still recruiting in the 8th grade. Morality has nothing to do with reclassing.
Turns out, it's just immoral.
Parents...... Your boys are going into 9th grade....HS. If you are still worried about the kid that is 1 year older than yours, how do you expect Johnny to make Varsity? You need to forget the holdback conversation, take Johnny to the gym and start getting him stronger, its a secret but at HS tryout the boys will be 4-5 years older than him. The time for excuses are over, if he is good he may make JV, if not he can play freshman, or you can hold him back a year to help him get stronger and better.
PS .... No college coach ever asked " how old is he", they just ask " what grade is he in"
