One of those supposedly guilty clubs you mentioned, my son plays for! You exaggerate the age gap. There are no 16 year olds vs 13 year olds. I’ve seen one year difference. 14 vs 13 and that’s the most. Besides when they get to high schools you cannot play past 19. Also when your correct age kid verses a kid a year older it makes your kid a better player for his future, thx to that reclass kid and to boot its on their dime not yours. So it’s known my kid is not reclassed and he does great vs the kids that got reclassified and even better bc of this vs the kids that are his age. It’s bc he’s an athlete and determined to beat that older kid to prove to them that he has it. So thx to these reclassified kids my kid got even better, again on their parents dime. So don’t wine about cheating. If your kids an athlete it won’t bother him. The people that this bothers is the ones that they want live their athletic years they didn’t have through their kids and the kid probably don’t want to be there or just there to be with friends which is fine. Or just to say their on a club team to help them towards a better school. Which is also fine. If he’s a athlete he will be fine playing an older kid and he will not care. Only bothers the parent. You’re kid will catch up and get better! Again I did not reclass my kid and don’t plan on it.
unfortunately this is a short sighted and narrow minded perspective essentially saying if your kid is good then it doesn't matter and that only parents are bothered by this. First there are plenty of players who are 2, or even 3 years difference (shocking) but yes most are 1 year difference. But in the end, does anyone really applaud the 26 year college lacrosse player; I actually pity these players that haven't gotten on with the rest of their lives. People use Stetson Bennett as a role model. Good for Stetson Bennett but football is a different animal and his outcome of winning the championship really is outlier in terms of outcome.
Second, this is not about most the parents crying for the kid (though I'm sure it is for a small minority); this conversation is what is good for the sport and the reality is continually holding back your kid for an athletic advantage is simply just not good for the overall health of the sport, This is one of the reasons why lacrosse will never extend beyond a niche sport but as lacrosse continues to go down this rabbit hole, it essentially caters to a very small minority of the US population with the remaining completely disinterested in the sport. There are equity and access issues galore with holdbacks and damages the overall health
The paradox is that to succeed at the top level (high D1) you need to be a holdback. These are the only successes we see. What we don't see is the rest of the iceberg of the holdbacks who end up at some lower level D1, D2 or D3 school and their delayed year was really all for naught (though many parents will justify how good it was for them). But my feeling is that this vicious circle needs to end. A level playing field is good for the sport from a macro-perspective and the overall health.
But if this tl;dr - real athletes play up, not down. My non-holdback son played up until 8th grade and I feel like benefitted him immensely. I could not even imagine him playing down and how much he would have dominated. Reclassing is driven by college coaches and club lacrosse who are not invested in the overall growth of the sport.
