Would you be comfortable with this material being attributed to you on the message board? Alternatively, would it be possible to carry your verbatim attributed to a member of LIMLF? I think if the community knew that this issue is being taken seriously at the local level even if not at the US Lacrosse level, it will go a long way to increasing Long Island's "trust" in this age group system.
Having come from the soccer side, I agree with you - the U/age structure with definitive oldest date per age group is the correct way to handle this situation. With US Soccer Federation, there is no variation between states on these age groups - so the first step is to get the passes in place and then get the standard definition in place. Grade based teams just do not work for reasons of held-back or left-back players.
No problem as I love a great discussion.
I agree with you on the U/ age structure and that is what US lacrosse is really trying to push with their new rules. They have to walk that fine line and they do not want to shove anything down all the clubs throats. They need the membership and almost every club team out there are members of US Lacrosse....they are doing the right thing by putting the new rules in place this year and I have started to notice tournaments moving to the U/age.
When my sons organization Recon started they set themselves up as U/age. However many tournaments still go by Grad year and grade. Example is the Recon U-15 team is only made up of current 8th graders and 7th graders. Under the age requirements of U-15 based on the August 31 cutoff you could have 9th graders on that team. Recon decided that all 9th graders should be playing at the U16 level and they all are now on the U16 team. I very good at following rules as long as everyone else follows them.
As we all know "winning" takes on a life of its own with some people. Let's move to passes and take all the guess work out of it.
Thanks,
Harry
