BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Age and Reclassification. The good the bad the ugly!

In Hockey the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow is the NHL draft and that is age based for when kids are eligible so age based makes sense. in lacrosse the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow is the college commitment and that will always grade based for obvious reason so travel lacrosse should (IMHO) always be grade based so a college coach can go to a game and know all the kids playing are graduating in the same year

With the new NCAA rules can you imagine an age based tournament? college coach would go to a November recruiting event and try to figure out what 17 year old (is on an age based team) he can talk to because some might be Juniors and some might be sophomores.

Before any of you call me a jack off or a cheater, my son is "on age" and he turned 18 in the spring of his Senior year .I just liked him playing against his own grade in travel lacrosse and never really cared about age.

A college coach is more than capable of watching an age-based game and understand that players will be entering college in different years. That is what college hockey coaches do. The pot o' gold for many hockey players, if you ask the parents, is the D1 scholarship, which is, as you know, grade based. Not necessarily the NHL draft. If college hockey coaches can do it, why can't college lacrosse coaches? They can go to a 2002 game and identify two great players that they are interested in. Then they can simply look at their programs and see that #23 in green is GY 2020, and #12 in white is GY 2021. They will then recruit accordingly. Why would this be hard? College soccer coaches do it also. If there are rules prohibiting contact for GY 2021, but not GY 2020, than they contact the 2020 kid, but wait on the 2021 kid. Moreover, why not tweak the new recruiting limitations to be based on age, not GY. No contact until a kid turns 16, for instance. Or no contact until January 1 in the year the kid will turn 16, or something similar.

Also, a BIG fact that you are missing, which disproves your point, is that the age year used for the NHL draft is different than that which is used in youth play. Hockey uses a calendar year, but the NHL deems you draft eligible using a Sept 15 cut off date. So NHL scouts are watching calendar year games knowing that kids born Jan 1 - Sept 15 will be draft eligible one year before kids born Sept 16-Dec 31. Yet somehow the world doesn't come to an end. This would be the EXACT same thing as a college coach watching a 2002 game knowing that some of the kids will be entering college a year ahead of other kids in the same game. Also, much of what they are scouting is junior hockey, which largely eliminates age differences once a kid turns 16. I, for one, would be fine with a travel lacrosse system that says once you are 16 (either calendar year, or sept/aug) its all "varsity division" or "senior division".

Again, college hockey and soccer coaches recruit just fine out of age based systems, which means they do just fine watching games where the players GYs will vary. I can't imagine why college lacrosse coaches couldn't do the same.

All very good points but at the end of the day if my kid is going to Jake Reed, Maverik or a big time recruiting tournament I want him to play against kids in the same recruiting year

Why?

All you parents that have your kid repeat a grade or two is for Lacrosse or another sport its not because of his grades stop the bulls**t. You all think he will end up at some D1 school its pathetic. You keep telling Johnny how good he is when he scores 4 goals against kids 1 or 2 years younger (He's Awesome). I have a 2023 live on Long Island he plays on a so called top club as you knuckleheads state and every year it gets worse with the age situation my own team included. Don't even get me started on MD, PA, MA, even Canada these areas are disgusting. Good luck I hope Johnny goes to Duke, ND or NC they deserve it.

Scientific studies have shown that athletes generally hit their peak performance at age 26. If you are doing a sport where the pinnacle of competition is college athletics, you really should holdback, do couple PG years, and play some club ball so that you enter college at age 24. Makes sense to me.

Real simple to answer for him...Because it gives his son an advantage being older.. Simple as that

Ding, ding, ding! You win!

It's happening - https://nxtsports.com/blog/entry/nx...to-adopt-us-lacrosse-age-segmentation-p/

Personally, I would think college coaches would want to see the kids play against kids of similar ages, because for recruiting purposes, if a kid looks like a giant stud, but really the only reason that is is because they are 1.5 to 2 years older, then they really aren't good, they are just older. Of course, now that the recruiting frenzy has calmed down, coaches will have a better idea of what they are getting, because rising Juniors who are older my look a little better, but it is not nearly the gap as it was in 8th grade. I have seen a big closing of the gap this summer (my son is an on-age 2020) kids that we super studs the last few years (and yes are "committed" to top programs) are struggling to stand out this summer and are very frustrated by that too (based on their acting out on the field when they are being consistently being beaten, they are clearly not used to that!). It will be very interesting to see how some of these "total studs" do moving forward, IMO, they are in for a rude awakening as are the coaches who have "committed" them. Of course, this is probably why coaches are "committing" close to 20 kids per grade, so the ones that don't work out, will just fall to the wayside.

Why does everyone always fixate on black & white solutions??! As has been mentioned previoulsy, go with age-based through 8th grade, and then grade-based for HS level athletes -'problem' (!) solved! Anyone who wants to can play up at ANY level.

We can be realistic, or we can keep saying f the prefirst and holdback kids. HS is never changing from grade based, because it just isn't! Showcases and recruiting style tournaments are not going to have age groups. Again, we can pout, stick out our lips, bang our head against the wall, but HS is staying by grad year. That being said, for those that say go age based for youth, grade based for HS, what would pre-first kids play in 8th grade, since you would not be including their age group for youth ball? Grade based excludes nobody right now. So if we want to change youth to age based, we need to make sure to address the pre-first/holdback kids at the 8th grade log jam. Add a smaller U15/U16 middle school division for those kids? Productive solutions call for productive debate, so no we can't call it the elite 8th grade league, and no we can't call it the MS cheater bracket. You guys are like the dems and reps fighting over health care repeal, this is certainly less complicated, but there has to be some budge in both directions.

Wondering if the club directors start rethinking their tryouts this year and next in for an orderly transition? Do they see NXT as an outlier, or the direction that everyone is going? If the latter, do they avoid NXT events and wait until last minute to implement age-based teams?

Well, if you do that, we appreciate your service, and/or we are glad you have recovered from your significant injury, because the NCAA has eligibility requirements, usually only leaving about a one year gap between HS graduation, and your clock starts (unless you were in military service, some type of volunteer corp, or had a documented rehabilitating injury).

Why?[/quote]

Because, when my son (who is on age) went to Maverik Showtime and played in the All Star game, I knew that the 75 D1 coaches watching that game were evaluating him against other kids that will be entering College in the Fall of 2017 - NOBODY, except maybe the parents of the kids that didn't make the all star game care if some kids were 17 and some kids were 15 or who was what age. We also used it as a selling tool when talking to coaches that he was on the younger side of the grade and is competing at a high level when is still wasn't shaving. IMHO he would have gained nothing my competing against kids his same age but two grades behind him.

my bet is, avoid NXT events

The bottom line, after over 20 years of experience with college recruiting is that, no downside exists for reclassing. It is a massive advantage. No downside. None at all. If the kid is good then reclass and he will be great.
Colleges like the older player because they are more mature and weightroom ready.
It my be unfair but not a rule violation so go ahead and do it. You have nothing to lose.

Other neighbors send their kids to prep schools to gain an advantage. I do not see the need to shell out $50K for prep when they can do 5th or 8th grade twice for substantially less.

I have four kids, reclassed one and will reclass the others at some point. The benefits also exist in the classroom with higher intellectual capacity and maturity.

I don't see a reason why the older 8th graders can't play up with the appropriate GY 9th graders - that's the team the kid would have been on on had they not done the pre-first/heldback/leftback/whatever. The ability to play up is never an issue. Yes, that player would then get to play on a freshman team again for the following season when he was truly a freshman, but how is that a problem? There is also no reason why a tourney can't have a 15U division to go along with a freshman grade-based division - I don't see both happening in one tourney, but nothing prevents it. Again, the ability to play 'up' (which, for the older 8th grader is a joke anyway, cause they're really not!) is the out for this 'problem'. At the end of the day, an enacted age-based system will do away with the sport-based holdbacks et al, so the number of boys in this situation will go down anyway. All you will have are true academic-driven situations.

If you can't see all the things your kid has to potentially lose - no post here will help you. Good luck to your kids.

Yeah, God forbid the kid plays the with his friends

Bravo for NXT for showing some leadership in this area. An overlooked aspect of this is where grade based team started - which is NY. Before 2013 there were zero youth clubs that were grade down here in MD/DC/VA. Even Crabs, Madlax, FCA, Looneys, Hawks etc were U11,13,15 . Crabs was one of the last to change. Not sure why or when NY teams went grade since it's to your disadvantage. But when Turtle 2018 2019 express, 2020 crush etc started showing up and destroying teams at what had been rec tournaments, clubs down here started organizing by grade as well. Then the hoco club league started and was grade based so all teams followed. Here's my point. Since NY has the most teams and have the most willingness to travel, if they all switched to single year U9,10,11,12 etc with US Lax 9/1 cutoff and only went to tournaments with the age cutoffs - this whole thing would turn. Tourney organizers follow the money and NY participation is key. I'm talking youth only. HS never changing. Also probably have to skip u14 and just have u15 for 8th grade. But at least that would get majority of youth with proper age segmentation. Just one guys opinion.

Poor kids are balding before the Senior Ball.

A refreshingly honest post, and that's coming from someone who's staunchly against the practice.

What part of the country are you in?

I see the guy as just another POS cheater whose kids will still be mediocre no matter how many times they TRY to get an unfair advantage. Maybe if they're lucky one day they will be asked to play for FCA....only to take a beat down by on age kids....in the end what will you have accomplished? That you are a weasel that becomes roadkill. Me, I'd rather teach my kids to overcome adversity by competing hard with morals and class, more important attributes in the grand scheme.

That.in.a.nutshell.is.what.is.wrong.with.this.sport.

Win at all costs. Sportsmanship be damned.

He may be those things to you....But unfortunately it works.. The UA games and tryouts are loaded with over age kids for their grade.
The better teams are loaded with holdbacks and older on age kids ..

Even tho puberty kicks in and evens it out with many. There will always be an advantage to be older than younger. There is a reason college Football red-shirts freshman ( among many other reasons) but even after puberty for boys there is some advantage to being older.. At around 22-25 that is when there is zero effect..

I think it is a completely sour note on lacrosse for the amount of kids being older for grade. The truth is , it will only get more and more as it works..

No one argues there isnt an advantage. Thats the whole point both on the field and classroom. As you dont care what i have to say, i'll still say it is cheating the system!!!

Once USL puts the pressure on college coaches - just like they did with early recruiting legislation - you are going to see a drip, drip, drip of a shift to age based classifidcation. It's only a matter of time. You want to be a sport that isn't just played by rich white kids - then you have to have a level playing field. Take one look at the UA teams, Inside Lacrosse HS rankings, etc and you will see a sport dominated by private schools/players with rosters stocked with reclassed kids. All of THAT starts with youth based grade classification. It's a sham and it needs to stop.

I will start by saying I did not hold back my son, but obviously it works. If it wasn't working this would not be such a hot topic on this site. So the detractors who are arguing against it are affirming people's attitudes that hold backs work. If I'm wrong let me know, but based on what I am reading here it appears holdbacks are dominating younger kids in lacrosse.

Why would USL pressure on college coaches to stop the practice? College lacrosse is guided by the NCAA. Only they can pressure college coaches.

USL was one of the driving forces behind the ER rule change. All they need is a couple of big name coaches to come out in favor of age based classification and that is all she wrote...

What a Joke I have to look at this garbage on the US Lacrosse website, inept organization!

"Formed in 2007, the US Lacrosse Ethics Subcommittee seeks to enhance internal policies focused on appropriate ethical practice; investigate and manage ethical issues that arise within the organization; prioritize broader ethical issues facing the sport; and develop resources and standards for the national lacrosse community."

Two word summary of your post: "cheating works". Wow - what a revelation! There are zero readers on this board that disagree with that conclusion. At the same time, that does not mean that is right, both ethically or in any other way, for the sport in general, which is WHAT everyone is arguing.

of course they are dominating - they are 12 to 24 months older - which is a HUGE advantage in the 7th and 8th grade.

I understand, but what is the advantage to NOT holding your son back? Unless it's over grade 3 the kid won't remember and he will be dominant up until about age 22. At which point it doesn't really matter anymore. Really, in 2017 what is morals driving? It's unethical to cheat in your taxes, yet everyone does it. Lie about being sick to miss work? Unethical. Scam an injury to get workers comp, the list is endless. I don't know, I don't agree with hold backs but really, I just don't think it's the be all end all.

If you hold your kid back for sport (especially dead end lacrosse) the state should take your kids away from you!

Focus on grades, grades, grades and then a little lacrosse

= the decline of civilization . . .

Cant reason with red cup holding, foul mouth yelling, overweight lax dad blowhards

Would like to see some of these parents who purposely hold their kid back or intentionally enter their child into younger competition be brought up on criminal charges should something happen to a younger player. Imagine your the parent of a 9 year that gets a life altering injury due to a parent, coach, organization playing an older kid that has no bussiness being on that field. Someone has to answer for that. Children will get hurt playing sports there is no doubt in that but it should be by someone their own age. If you play your child/children against younger kids then heads up up your kid is garbage at the sport, and you have officially failed as a parent.