Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by NotFromLI
Most class of 2018 are US Lacrosse U-13 elgible this season
Born After August 31, 1999

Looking for some help, how does an association treat an "older" member of the class of 2018 during spring '13 season??

We have 1-2 boys in this grouping at each grade. The vast majority of the roster is age appropriate for their grade. One of the boys is a late August birthday and misses the cutoff by a few days.

Notably, if they intend to attend tournaments playing by US Lacrosse rules, I assume the options are:
1-Player is placed on the 2017 team
2-The team plays in the U-15 division
3-Association get clearance from tournament director but technically is "playing down"

This has become a hot topic in my area (not a typical Lax hotbed) looking for some advice

Thanks-
Midwest Lax Dad





This is a hot topic everywhere.

As I believe the rules state, if it is a US Lacrosse sactioned event the Tournament directors should not have a baring on the rule. It is inflexable and a hard date is made for a reason. Insurances can be null and void if allowed. Yes, it is unfortunate, but where do you draw the line then, there will always be older and younger.

If it is not a US lacrosse sactioned event:
The team must have seperate insurance outside of US lacrosse. He can play grade based or He can also play if U13 and granted permission (seems reasonable enough).

The issue is liability and insurance, who wants to get caught with their hand in the perverbial cookie jar. because how many tournaments really asked for the waiver or better yet ck the info.

The only way to change the culture is for the tournament directors to stop making the tournaments for the travel circuit based on class year. That is fine for town brackets. If they just adopted the US lacrosse guidlines and followed the U-17,16,15,14 etc. every kid would be in the right AGE bracket, the same way baseball, football, basketball, soccer etc. do it! Why is this so hard to figure out. when you get to the High School level the better kids can play U-17 and play up if they want to be seen by the colleges earlier..


There will always be a date to meet. If you are Midwest than what is your date for Football and do you blend grades or is it one year at a time.

I am all for the class year. Why force a child to play on a team without his friends (rememebr you also have to think of the boys that do NOT play on these elite teams). For youth lacrosse why have a 2 year gap as US larosse does. Why not do a grade based or one year brackets. I can understand in non hotbeds the 2 year gap may have once helped the numbers fielding a team. but has that time come and gone.

When you get into MS or HS of course a mixed grade is acceptable, they will play that way from then on it as it is. And the question is never playing up it is playing down!