BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Long Island Yellow Jackets Lacrosse

You will see them now

Yes you will. Like the old saying goes..."Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it".

I hope the clubs and tournament organizers are forced to follow new rules ... but what is there to compel them? Is it the pooled insurance US lax offers? Will it be the facilities demanding it in order to host tournaments given their insurance policies?

Clubs will continue to do what's best for them and if they don't change, tournaments wont change because they need the clubs for the revenue. US LAX still remains an organization without teeth far behind soccer that rules with an iron fist. Lax is trying but the clubs rule the sport

Why in soccer and hockey do the clubs bend to the authority then? What leverage do they have over the clubs and can the same exist in lax? There must be something.

two words for you ... Danny Almonte!!!!!!!!!

Nothing will change at all. Right now every tournament I know of loosely follows US Lax guidelines. The College coaches in attendance is what attracts clubs, coaches want to see grad classes, not a confusing mish mosh of age groups. Clubs want to present recruits in order too. With on field rules, game time, field sizes, uniforms etc... The only tournament who follows rules exactly is U15, which will now be U13,14 &15. The clubs have tryouts for these teams anyway and send age compliant kids. The only people who even remotely care about this crap are parents who cant handle taking a loss because one kid on some team is a few months older than the rest. Let it go, you will live longer.

Just curious why you think it wouldn't be best for clubs to change? Every club we ever belonged to, including PAL and LISGL required a valid US lacrosse membership card. Coaches in LISGL were also required to submit birth certificates.

Trying to remember if I've ever read a post w more incorrect statements and so many presumptions without any actual knowledge. Let's start w the fact that ur kid is obviously too old for their grade or u r involved w a club who makes money off the current system. W recruiting so young, and happening well before kids bodies r fully developed, many college coaches would love to see age based groupings. It will help them make fewer mistakes. And before u go on w your teed up response that how do I know what college coaches think, my daughter and many of her friends are assistants at D1 schools and are the ones on the recruiting circuit.

The people who care about this issue extend far beyond the parents of kids who are playing at the appropriate age and it isn't a question of a couple of months. One girl on a local high school team is two years old for her grade. And it is much worse and more dangerous on the boys side. So there are many constituencies including insurance companies, local and regional organizations as well as the national governing body that care about this issue.

Good job US Lacrosse. It took to long but it is the right move. As it has been for many other youth sports.

He was a baseball player - why would he impact soccer and hockey, but not lacrosse? Seems more like the successful sports enforced it from the beginning and lax is just too far down the other path (lack of enforcement) to start now. Like others have suggested, it would be easiest to start with the youngest kids and implement over time.

I applaud the move and sincerely hope it works but lets be realistic. It means nothing, their rules have no teeth. Why does early recruiting happen? It's an arms race with each coach saying it's bad but doing it anyway out of fear of missing out. Same thing will happen at the club level. Clubs may *want* to implement this, but they'll be afraid the next club won't and therefore they'll be at a disadvantage. Club prestige and winning directly impacts club revenue. So no, it's not going to happen. Wish it would. Great idea. But unenforceable so completely useless.

Disagree. Winning what? It has very little to do w it. Recruiting does. But winning a tournament at the youth ages means nothing for recruiting. But age-based groupings won't effect whether the best girls get recruited. In fact, if the club is good at developing players, it will help to have the divisions be aged based so clubs that promote holding back (mostly on boys side) won't get away with poor coaching and still "win". It will be a lot more transparent where the good club coaching lies. And, ultimately, that transparency will be good for the best clubs.

So we agree clubs control the sport when it should be the other way around. In soccer most travel players do not play in college. In lacrosse most club players do. Club lacrosse will continue to call all the shots

Maybe the Mods can reach out to a few of the well known club directors and see if they want to make a statement?

I am currently working with someone who I think can bring the clubs together. Please be patient these things take time.

Larry you know everyone in soccer, if you pull this off its nobel peace prize worthy. Too many pigs at the chow bucket in lacrosse

I am appalled with the rules or lack thereof. It has been burning me up to read all of the craziness. I will do my best to champion fair play.

True that I have been involved with soccer forever and know most of the principles there but have been here over a year now and am learning my way around the landscape just fine.

Now if any of you club directors out there want information, feel free to contact me.

Has anyone heard anything through the YJ grapevine about whether or not the YJ's will be switching to age-based classifications next season?

CR doesn't listen to anyone. She runs the sport

No reason to. None of the tournaments directors will turn down entire clubs, so tournament formats will not change. Nothing at all will change. The only tournament that mandates the age classification is the US lax national championship. CR puts teams together for that anyway. Another cash flow oppurtunity. People are all worked up over this, but it has zero teeth and will change nothing. If US lax tries to force tournaments to adhere, they will simply drop the US sponsorship, which nearly none of them adhere to anyway.

Not so fast. US lacrosse does have a hammer if they want to use it. Insurance. Most clubs use the US lax insurance which comes with membership.

The only people worked up are those who have kids not playing within the new age appropriate guidelines.

If the big clubs like YJ implement, the others will too. Will be interesting but my gut says clubs will follow, just my 2 cents.

LOLOLOL US Lacrosse has been and remains gutless and weak. No way they are going against the clubs. US Lax likes the US Lax required membership that clubs enforce. They aren't walking away from that.

Clubs do and will continue to run the sport and that's part of the problem

Judging by the responses, it appears that nobody knows anything for sure whether or not the YJ's will switch to age based. Just speculation at this point.

Maybe you should do something crazy like contact the club directly.

What I'm struggling with is why would clubs in general not adopt these new age based guidelines?

Because clubs exist as a platform for girls to get recruited. They put teams together for coaches to come see. Way better to have girls all of the same grad year. I'm sure college coaches appreciate it very much. They get to see kids play with peers of the same class. The burden would then be on them to figure out if kids only look good because they are now playing age based and are advantages lossed or gained playing with peers of the recruited class. Only people who care are crybaby parents whose travel team suffers a loss to another with a hold back or an older non hold back. None of my kids are hold backs and I could care less, leave it how it is, works better for clubs, cosllege coaches etc.......

No I agree with you my question was why would clubs NOT want to adopt the change?

You have it exactly backwards. Every other sport the college coaches somehow can handle figuring out what grade the kid is in. It is much more helpful, especially with recruiting being so young and in the developmental years physically (12-15), for coaches to see kids play in age divisions, not grade divisions. There is plenty of research that shows that while certainly not perfect, age groupings are much better than grade groupings. And at the very least, age groupings can not be gamed like grade groupings can and are.

The only ones whining about age groupings are the little cry babies such as your self who thought they could get an advantage for their little Suzie. You have a hold back kid, liar.

Holdback is pretty much a MD/VA/DE thing, we don't do that here on LI. When we play M&D, Heros, Skywalkers, etc. those players drop their kids off before the game at the babysitters, it's that bad.

There are plenty of holdbacks right here on LI.

Obviously you can't beat the md teams so you make up some stupid excuse such as hold backs. 2019 teams do not have any but good try.

you have plenty of kids that are a year too old for their grade. Call it what you want.

That a joke? Md 2019 teams (all teams) have no girls that are a year older??? that is just downright silliness. They have many.

I have a question. Will the 2020s struggle at u15 when the time come Because of this issue.

No, they just won't go. Make up excuses about money or something else, even though they spend 40k a year for high school

There are far more older girls on the YJ teams then there are on the M&D teams. Girls are not held back for lacrosse like boys are in MD. There are a few here and there that went to prefirst if private school, but it is actually quite rare for girls.

Agreed. This is a CR mandated approach to soften the blow of any losses to MD teams. It's their way of saying "We didn't lose, fair and square. We got beaten by an 'older' team". Now, please continue to send me money". Signed...CR.

Seriously not familiar with all the age groups but I believe,

2016 YJ has proven to be the better team over MD
2017 YJ again
2018 I think its pretty even not sure with slight edge to YJ recently
2019 MD clearly better
2020 YJ has dominated the head to head his far
2021 YJ has again dominated the head to head matchup

So in all the age groups that no longer play in pull ups its 4 ages clearly in YJ corner,1 clearly in MD, and a toss up. Why would they need to make up excuses.Honestly I think the different age cut off for school is what makes a lot of LI parents feel the MD teams are on average older which they are.

This is so far from true it's not even funny.