Parents seem to feel pretty passionately about this issue. Perhaps they should start their own league. Maybe in Anne Arundel county. Make it by birth year. People need to either do something or stop complaining.[/quote]

There is a league and it's called SMYLA and it's part of a larger org running their rules undes USL by birth date. It is filled with awful rec teams where those clubs are owned by parents and run like the community bake sale. Up until 7th grade, they run small field 7v7 games. Some of the "travel" kids play but they usually play a different position like a goalie playing in the field or a pole with a short stick because the travel clubs slot kids in 3rd grade and never consider allowing a kid to try a different position after that.

Running a league or a club is a full-time job. It also requires real up-front investment in the form of fields (renting or owning), paid manager/management, equipment, insurance, ... Montgomery County, MD provides no discount or assistance in the renting of their fields or providing refs, equipment and so on. Howard County does all of that.

Your only chance is to go to HoCo and beg and plead for them to split off the lower division teams into a birthdate league. This would also require buy in from lower tier clubs to go along with it. A more realistic approach would be to tighten the age to summer birthdays or even all the way up to 1/1 instead of the year prior 9/1. It is insane there are players a full 364 days older and beyond born prior to the USL 9/1 birthdate. I don't know about this year but the 2019 season had 6 players who were "double" holdbacks and turned 16 prior to their freshman year in high school. 3 were on the same team.