most school cut off dates are not hard dates - so a kid born in Oct. or Nov. the parents might have a choice to start them "on time" and be in the younger 25% of the class or hold them back for developmental reason and make them up to 14 months older then a kid who was born in Dec. and the parents started them "early". I think all of this has nothing to do with sports. on the other hand their are kids that finish the 8th grade and then repeat 8th grade at a prep school to get that extra year and and wind up being a year older.

In most schools I think you would have a normal 14 month spread between the oldest and youngest in a grade. I also think that this is a lot of talk about a relatively few kids at least here on LI.