Originally Posted by Anonymous
No one agrees with you reclass Dad. If they did the entire 91/Express teams would be reclassing rather than just a handful of kids. Reason why they don’t is everyone else thinks it is nuts!

Literally not a *single* reclass hating parent is refusing to reclass his kid purely out of *principle*.

Either (1) you don’t need to (because your kid is a student - sincere congrats), (2) you don’t think it’s worth doing (because it won’t help your marginal player, who is low level D1, or mid to low D3, or not even planning to play in college - nothing wrong with any of those), or (3) you can’t afford to do it (understandable, and no doubt the right call not to do it).

So...why pretend otherwise? Why the moral preening?

Just admit that other teams, playing by the rules, beat your son’s team. It’s not the end of the world.[/quote]

First and foremost not many parents at this age care about wins and losses as long as their kids team is somewhat competitive. It’s very much about recruitment very soon.

My son is a very good player. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’m sure he is good enough for higher level D1. As it stands now, he is in the top 5% of players in his graduation year. Varsity as an 8th grader. Definitely some room for improvement. He is my oldest and I’m admitting I really am not educated enough to tell you where that places him at the end of hist 10th grade year, assuming he progresses at the same level. For arguments sake you’ll have to take my word for it regarding where he is at talent wise.

With that said, I can’t reclass him for a few reasons. First and foremost, he has no urge. We have talked about the lacrosse landscape and the reclassing thing and he just doesn’t want to, despite being young for a 28. No parent in their right mind would force a kid to repeat a grade against their will assuming they are on par academically. Second reason I can’t reclass him is I simply can not afford it. And the third reason is I don’t believe it sends the right message to my son about rising to the occasion.

Now I have told my story. I’m anti holdback. And truth be told it is not out purely out of principle. I gave my reasons. You 100% nailed it.

Now it’s your turn buddy. Is your holdback stance base on…
1. Your kid is small (not their fault).
2. Your kid is not good at lacrosse (very good chance it’s also not their fault).

I’m gonna sort of quote you here.
Literally not a *single* reclass LOVING parent has admitted the reason they made the decision to reclass. It’s not solely to provide an advantage. No advantage would be needed if they didn’t fall into one of the two categories above.

So which is it?
Too small?
Not good enough?
It is definitely one of those two reasons, so why pretend otherwise?[/quote]

Great post. I’m the guy who wrote the post to which you just responded, and many of the other very well-written posts!

First, I meant to write “student”, not “student”, in my list of 3 reasons. There are plenty of absolute killer players who don’t need to reclass. Great for them. Same with football, basketball and hockey.

Anyway, I’ll address your points because you were kind enough to provide a thoughtful list.

To begin, my son is not a reclass at all. This obviates my response, but I’ll keep going.

He’s in the “correct” grade where we live but is certainly close to the cutoff. Lucky birthday. Why does everyone assume that because I defend reclassing (within the rules), that my son must be a reclass?

I don’t actually LOVE reclassing as much as I detest notIntelligent arguments and whiny posts from sore losers. To be clear, your post is none of that, but many other posts qualify. There is something pathetic about people who accuse others of cheating when the behavior at question is completely within the rules.

I have no plan to reclass my son because
- he grew early
- he’s on one of the top 2028 teams, and plays a ton
- he’s a top student and will get into a top 20 academic school without lacrosse
- he has a shot at a top 20 lacrosse school but neither of us cares if he gets it; not willing to take an extra year to see if that would help

Yet, he might consider a PG year if the Princeton coach guarantees him a spot there (ridiculously unlikely). And I don’t think there would be anything wrong with that at all.[/quote]

Thanks for the reply. I know you didn’t mean to put student. This site changes the word you meant to write to student. We actually are in a somewhat similar situation. I see your point about people coming off whining. I myself probably have come off that way on here and while talking to others about the lacrosse landscape. I just get frustrated at the lack of common sense the people in charge have and can’t believe it has gotten to this point. Rules should have been changed years ago.[/quote]

Agreed. And they changed my response again. Now I see how. I thought I just got autocorrected. I got Back of the Cage corrected.

Kids who are insanely good don’t *need* to reclass. But it’s true (like someone else recently posted) that a lot of top players do it anyway. It helps them get to the absolute top level. Just like extra training and private lessons.

Why not consider it from the college coach’s perspective? Does anyone really think that any college coach has a vested interest in assuring that his recruits are “age on”? In confirming that that each one is age appropriate in the state in which he started kindergarten?

What if he moves from NJ to NY, with an October birthday? SOL…out of principle?

Are you (not you, but the whiners) on drugs?

Is there a single player in the history of lacrosse who would have been a better player entering college at age 17 than he would have been entering at age 18? Or 18 instead of 19? No chance.

Best of luck to you and your son. He’s way ahead already.[/quote]

Thank you I appreciate it and best of luck to your son as well. All very valid points. I confess it annoys me that my son will graduate young. Would he better off graduating later, strictly in the eyes of a college coach? Absolutely. Will we change our course of action because of that? No, because there is more to life than lacrosse and it’s not feasible for us to do that. That’s the annoying part. I’ll leave it at that and I appreciate the decent exchange. Rare on here.