One of the topics that keeps coming up on BOTC is "player passes" which are used to validate the age group, with photo ID, of a given player. Commonly in use with the
United States Soccer Federation for youth players in both USYSA and USCS, there is nothing like this player pass concept in the US Lacrosse movement.
Are you aware of anything taking place to bring about legit player passes in lacrosse?
In response to your question I would just like to say it is coming. Cannot tell you about how many times I have heard about the "player age and grade issue". US Lacrosse has not taken any position in regard to player ID's from what I know of. They just came out with the New Youth rules which aligns around the U13, U15, U17 concept which really goes by age and not grade. I see the problem coming about as you could have a player in grade 11 (grad year 2013) who could be 18 years old and another player being 16 years old or a 9th grader (grad year 2015) being 16 years old and another being as youth as 13.
In my opinion we really need to have standards. When I have spoken to Directors of new club teams and they ask how should they form teams it can be very confusing right now. Do they go by grade, Grad year, or use the U13, U15, U17 concept or in my opinion U11, U12,U13,U15,U16,U17. I feel the Underage concept is the way to go as everyone can get a handle on that for tournaments and we should have some form of ID to verify a players age. It becomes much more of a problem at the lower ages where size and age can be a huge issue.
Just my opinion and I really think if we follow US Lacrosse Youth rules we could also look to put in player passes. Too many Coaches and parents doing the wrong thing out there and the kids are suffering.
Thanks and stay well,
Harry Jacobs
President
Long Island Metro Chapter of US Lacrosse
