BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Age Verification

They are literally men amongst boys. Most are likely 1-2 years older than your son. Madlax also has reputation of playing kids from older teams against out of state teams. Welcome to the world of travel lacrosse, where no rules, ARE the rules...

Exactly right..Welcome to the world of the disgusting slant club lacrosse has taken . No age limits only grade and imagination. Frankly all of lacrosse who participate in this charade should be ashamed.But the W's keep coming...

Our coach supposedly told a few of our parents we were playing against some kids who are two years older than our players so some of the responses I am reading are right on the mark. If that is the case, I am very happy our players were able to compete against older players. Still a wonderful weekend of lacrosse, the kids had a great time.

Food for thought from another thread:

For what it's worth, here's a little anecdotal info on early recruiting from the 2017 recruits listed on laxpower.

School cut off in NYS is December. Most recruits are public school kids.

New [lacrosse] State has 77 commits in 2017

In the hold back, grade repeat, re-class States of MD, PA, DC and VA combined, 76 commits.

You make your own deductions...

Bad joke. Crabs are known for overage players, not Madlax.

The 2019 team you played does not have any overage kids, no reclassers. Madlax posts rosters and ages so easily verified. Same 2019 team played in age verified tourneys all over the country. And won.

Your coach should check his facts before he makes such obvious excuses. Time to upgrade clubs.

I am not aware of any overage/ reclassed boys on the Madlax 2019 team. My son is on the team and is among the taller boys. He turned 14 this year like other non-lacrosse kids in his 8th grade class. Some of the boys are fairly big, and muscular, but some of the truly excellent players on the team are actually not even that big when you see them out of gear, off the field among peers. It is a terrific group of boys who get along well, really enjoy playing with each other, and play very well as a team. I did not notice a real discrepancy in player size among the four teams at the event (Madlax LI Express North, Mesa, Hawks (Annapolis, MD)). Incidentally, although the event was in Maryland, most of the Madlax draws from all over the DC area -- Maryland, DC, and Virginia.

Please re-read my post. The coach "supposedly told a few parents"...I personally thought the games were all close and evenly contested and my son had a great time.

This age issue is a real problem if there are indeed certain clubs (Crabs?) who are widely known to play older kids down. What a shame.

Guess again, Madlax brings players down from older teams. Played against them in the fall. Had juniors and seniors playing in a 2018 bracket. Kids on the Madlax team admitted it. Time to check the facts with your director. Sorry.
What would prevent the same behavior? Nothing.

I'm sure there are a few holdbacks on Madlax 8th grade teams, my guess would be 4-5 which is probably the average for 2019 AA teams in the NPYLL, not a comment about right or wrong, but just stating what has become the trend in recent years.

Didn't you post you were unaware of any older kids on the 2019 Madlax team?

Ummm.....no I posted "I'm sure there are a few holdbacks on Madlax 8th grade teams, my guess would 4-5 which is probably the average for 2019 AA teams in the NPYLL, not a comment about right or wrong, but just stating what has becomethe trend in recent years" My reply was in response to the person stating there were none. I think there are two people named Anonymous

I can't track these threads, my apologies.

The Maryland club season is about to start this weekend. It will be the first year with most teams going grade base. It will be interesting to see how teams fare with their holdbacks. Most teams will not know exactly how many holdbacks each team has that they play. Sorta of a guessing game. Of course Crabs will be the leader in holdbacks per team. Most Crab wins will be considered tainted by some that dont agree with holdbacks.

I agree, Crab wins will be tainted or laughable, sad, unsportsmanlike, disingenuous, dishonest, disgraceful, etc... I think we all know the deal. Kids couldn't hack it at 2018 so Mommy and Daddy made it all better and had them play with the younger, smaller boys.

In 2 years it won't matter- kids will level out and the real talent will stand out. In the meantime, speed, good stick skills and lax IQ can help deter the physicality of the holdbacks. If the holdbacks had all these to begin with, they would not have chosen to stay back. You are not a success story and decide to hold back- that's the bottom line.

How many holdbacks play on varsity HS teams?
2019/2018/2017

My sons team played Crabs 2020 yesterday and oh my gosh. Our team cleared the field after our Loonies game because as the Crabs were walking onto the field our coach thought it was their high school team. Our kids packed up all their gear and were headed to to other field and on their way were turned back because that was the Crabs 2020!! They were huge. No way some of those kids weren't a year older.

Many as the MIAA HS teams are loaded with holdbacks. MD Public's not so much. No big deal as all MIAA teams have holdbacks so it is evened out in competition. Does make the quality of play better as you watch "technically" many College Freshman playing HS ball.

I'm having a hard time understanding what we are all defining as a "holdback". I think its all insanity but I see some people referring to kids who are heldback a year in school but I am also seeing some people refer to kids who "intend to do a PG year". I intend to lose 20 lbs, but that doesn't mean squat today. What's the deal

A holdback is a kid who has repeated a grade or done an extra grade early on (pre-1st) ostensibly to gain some type of advantage over his 'peers' later on in school - typically on the athletic field. This creates a situation where a kid is a year older than those he is competing against, in the middle school years this extra year can make a very big difference.

Parents are going to do what they do but this becomes a bigger problem when it is team policy to seek out these kids or encourage parents to hold their kids back, as is frequently alleged with the Crabs.

This is not to be confused with the other problem of teams who knowingly bring in older kids or register their teams in a lower age group so as to do better in tournaments, which is the case with Rising Sons and Edge Canada respectively.

Both of these issues have been discussed at length in this thread and others. The only solution is that this sport get organized and require proof of age for all leagues and tournaments - like real sports do it.

As a parent of a child who's son did Blue Chip it is widely known that at the parent meetings it is encouraged to repeat either 8th grade or do a PG. I think that if a child is planning on doing a PG he should play in the year he or she is in until they PG. There is a player on a 2018 team that is a 2017 and has yet to PG but is playing down. What if he decides not to PG. Would that team be cheating? A lot can occur between now and the PG year.

Until lacrosse goes to birth year format this will always be an issue. As a youth soccer player there players on my team that were in the year below class wise but because they were born in November and December of the year I was born they had to play with us.I always thought playing up was the best way to get better not play down.

US Lacrosse "is working on this", I'm told. Now, I don't know how big of a technology issue rolling out player cards and monitoring is, but until they have a working solution in place, US Lacrosse should at the very least post an age/birthdate standard for competition.

In "Most" states, Sept 1-August 31 is the accepted standard for competition. If local lax organizations start abiding by this calendar standard, we could clean-up a lot of the games some clubs out there are playing.

If this became the "new' standard, nobody would be able to play-down, or hold-back anymore.

People can still repeat but they will play in their appropriate age bracket. If the PG it will change their graduation year and the year they enter college. It won't change the playing field. In turn they probably won't stand out as a player who is possibly 2 years older than the players they are playing with.

Where would a hold back/left back you play when they are a HS senior? Their age group would have graduated AND RIGHTFULLY SO!

Hold back /left back kids should be taken away from their parents! Play by the rules and worry about their education.

They would miss out on travel play if they were held back. They could play in a summer league of college players. A PG will play with his or her Prep School over the summer going into their 13th year if they have a team.

This is standard operating procedure for 3D. They play kids down all the time. If you play on one of their teams your real 2018 could be benched for a 2017 playing down (or kids from another region, it is about winning to attract more parents). I know of two instances of players playing down one weekend and committing at their actual grad year the next. Understand it is all about the club, keeping the D1 dream fresh so daddy keeps checks flowing.

I guess parents will hold their kids back because they are deranged, but programs playing teams down in lower age groups is criminal. What happens if a younger kid gets hurt and they thought they were playing same age kids? Serious injuries will occur and then who is to blame? Protect the kids, don't line your pockets.

Actually they play in the reclass grade if they want for summer, as if they were a senior. They would have been already playing with that team. That was the whole point of reclass.

This will just get debated in a circle until an event dictates change. Unfortunately that event will be harm to a kid due to the safety risks associated. A lot of earlier posters noted that in the old U-9, U-11, U-13, U-15 days there were kids with a two year spread, so what is the big deal? When that was the case there were clubs doing U-11a and U-11b, etc. teams. Now it just concentrates into not being able to do single year 2020a and 2020b teams for example. Not enough coaches or fields. I think US lacrosse meant well to publish their gold stick best standards, U-10, U-11, U-12, etc. But the lacrosse industry just ignored it completely. So what if US lacrosse does name cards with birthdates? Unless clubs abide by US lacrosse guidelines and don't go off and self insure their events that does not mean squat. Unfortunately this is just going to eventually play out as an insurance issue. Just one kid seriously hurt, just one lawsuit and just one judgement/settlement paid by the insurers and this all changes to what this board is begging for. No way are the club guys going to accept liability again after something like that and those same guys are certainly not going to pay many multiples of their current insurance premiums if that comes to pass. Just my two cents. As a parent of two young kids, very frustrated as many of you are from a safety perspective more than a lacrosse one. Whatever happened to the best players craving to play up? Wayne Gretzky always noted that he never played against kids who were not several years older than him. Despite the safety risks he did it, and as important his parents were able to have the discretion do decide or not if he would be out there with bigger/older kids.

I was referring to the possibility of the system going to birth year not graduating year.

There isn't going to be some magic lawsuit that fixes the age issue. The reality is every fall there are middle school football games with 200 lb kids playing against 100 lb kids and everything is insured.

Parents just need to do a little research into what they are signing up for and be realistic. Don't have your son play in a 2020 AA tournament if you don't want him going against a few 6 foot d-poles. Do you think you can go to Young Gunz and not see abnormally large and fast athletes? If your son hasn't gone through puberty you might not want him to play on a 2019 A team even if he was great when he was in sixth grade. There will be boys who are physically mature on that field.

The problem comes from parents not accepting that no matter how much time and money they have put into lacrosse, if your son isn't lightning fast or he didn't mature early he is at a disadvantage in middle school.

Maybe you should just let your son have fun on a less competitive team rather than whine about what other people are doing. The size issue exists regardless of whether it comes from early puberty or from holdbacks.

And no, I don't have a holdback. I do have a 2017 and a 2020 going through puberty at the same time so I have seen both sides of it.

I can't help but wonder why parents are not more inclined to navigate the recruiting scene by suggesting to the interested coaches that their son enroll at that college and do a redshirt freshman year. Be upfront and say you will pay for year one, and judging from the tuition and boarding fee costs of the boarding prep schools where kids would PG it would also be cheaper. If parents thought about suggesting that to 3d and whomever else is urging this reclassify thing, I doubt they'd have an intelligent reply. The message that college coaches are sending is they want kids a year older and more developed. Instead of taking that as a mandate to run off and write a $60K check to Deerfield or Avon, why not suggest that junior enroll for a year, get some college credits and good academic standing and practice up?

How are parents supposed to do research when people are cheating. Your example of football is different. When kids are playing in a league where it is known that players could be bigger even though they are in the allowable birth year its a risk you take and are fully aware of.

In lacrosse with hold backs and school year cutoff dates there could be an instance where a boy could be 2 plus years older than another. Example: Boy is Born in Nov 1st 2000, parents based on birthdate held him back and(this is fine and legal due to kindergarten cutoff start date is Dec 1st) then he repeats 8th grade(this is questionable)but a parents choice to try and gain an advantage. Now he's playing in 2020 graduation year. Have you seen the difference of some of the boys in 9th grade to 7th. Then a coach cheats and has this kid play a year down. Happens all the time.

Well you have to understand these clubs only care about their club, and their egos. Your alternative makes sense. However, if you want 3D to market your kid you better get on board with whatever you are ordered to do or they will loose interest in your kid, oh and make sure all your checks clear. Be prepared to have junior play down, or play with a different region or sit his butt on the bench while kids from other regions or a class older play in his spot.

Good read. The fact that players who are born in the same year mature at different rates is a normal thing. Big parents, small parents, and even early puberty. When parents and teams are manipulating the system by keeping kids back and repeating years to give their child an unfair advantage is something that should be looked into. Then add a few cheaters in to the equation you have major discrepancies in size.

It is easy to figure out that in the highest divisions of the best 2019 and 2020 tournaments there will be kids that are the physical equivalent of high schoolers. If the 2020 kid is 6 feet and 175 lbs it doesn't matter if it is because he is a holdback or because he matured early. The people running your club have an obligation to make sure that their teams are entered into appropriate divisions or tournaments. Any AA division means the kids will be physically mature.

I disagree with in "any AA division the kids will be physically mature". At early age levels skill is a major determining factor. I know plenty of players who were small for their age and playing age appropriate but could blow the socks off of less skilled player. Add a 2 year age difference and skill to the equation it adds a whole new dynamic. My friend has a son who is tiny for his age in 2021. He is extremely skilled and quick. Practices daily on the wall and is a pleasure to watch play. When he plays with kids who are his age and also talented his skills still shine. He comes around and plays with the older kids every so often. He can hang for a bit but must be playing at 110% at all times to do so. Where when playing with kids his own age he can dial his level of play down and dial it up when he needs to. When playing with the older kids he cant sustain his 110% level all the time which in turn effects his play.

I am very familiar with boys youth lacrosse, hockey and soccer. Its very troubling, in my view, that the former does not have boys playing per their age. It is implemented in a sensible way for the later two sports, and works well. There is no reason why lacrosse could no copy soccer or hockey. I just don't understand the claim that $$ gets in the way. The people who run the tournaments will still get their fees, and the people who run the clubs will still get their tuition money. They will just form teams based on age. Directors can still recruit kids, win titles, and boast on their twitter accounts. Soccer and hockey clubs are still very aggressive with marketing and recruitment, and charge high tuition fees. The business model doesn't change much if age restrictions are implemented and enforced.

My son plays on a very good Town team at a grade level that is below middle school. Not on LI though. In order to minimize blow outs that don't help anyone other than our egos, we play some games "up", making sure its limited to just one grade above us. The size, speed and physicality difference from one year to the next is astronomical. An outstanding team at our grade level (us) is just 50/50 to win vs just an ordinary team one grade up. At the highest level of club lacrosse, where everyone is athletic, fast and skilled, there is simply no reason to have a younger team play an older team simply because the kids may be in the same grade.

If my son's team went into a time machine and played us last year, we would murder our last year selves. I don't see why this has to happen, figuratively, on the club circuit where teams are basically forced to play the next year version on themselves just because they are playing a team that has a ton of holdbacks or kids playing down.

The reason that there are grade based tournaments with no age restrictions is that there are a lot of clubs that want to play under those rules (or lack thereof).

No one forces a club to play older teams. You either pick a tournament and a bracket where there won't be over age kids or you don't. Avoiding the AA bracket of highly competitive tournaments pretty much eliminates the problem.

The only reason there is an issue is that parents and club directors want the bragging rights of saying they won in the highest brackets and in the best tournaments. If you focus on making sure your child is playing at the level where he has the most fun and skill development than there isn't a problem.

If you want to say he played at the highest level in the best tournaments than be prepared to play with the big (and maybe older) boys.