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

Soccer and hockey have it...why cant lacrosse start..ID cards. Sept 1-Aug 31...only fair way to do this. Start in 4-5 grade on down. cant enforce it with older grades that have established team already. I would love to see it enforced from 8th grade down....Just wait till one boy gets really hurt because of a grade based tournament. I mean really really hurt..Parents will then be on board. Why does a boy have to get hurt really bad before we change this rule. Its about growing the game and getting more kids involved...Not championships for 4-8th grades and T shirts

No one is getting hurt. There have been thousands of games played over the last several years and No one got really hurt. Even if they were, nothing will change. Best bet is to just keep your kid in PAL until HS, then the worry is over. Sorry to be the truth teller but that’s it.

Soccer and hockey have it...why cant lacrosse start..ID cards. Sept 1-Aug 31...only fair way to do this. Start in 4-5 grade on down. cant enforce it with older grades that have established team already. I would love to see it enforced from 8th grade down....Just wait till one boy gets really hurt because of a grade based tournament. I mean really really hurt..Parents will then be on board. Why does a boy have to get hurt really bad before we change this rule. Its about growing the game and getting more kids involved...Not championships for 4-8th grades and T shirts

Leading Edge has taken this to a whole new level.
They now interpret the rule as:
2022 is the graduating year and if you intend to graduate in 2022 then you can play with the 2022 team. Meaning "high school freshman are now playing against 8th graders." They have at least 5 freshman on the team, according to the LE parents talking at NLF this past weekend. It sounded like the on age parents had no clue this was going on until they got to the first practice, Ridiculous....

Totally agree!

Where did you get this info. If true wow

Frist, off its Fall ball. Are you sure it wasn't "our 22 Goalie couldn't make it so we had to pulled down a 21 so we could play?" Most clubs would pull up their 23. Yes, they have 10 to 12 holdbacks.. the "freshman" holdback could be at Pingry taking 8th/9th classes but technically be in the 8th grade.
Regardless Leading Edge is now 91 so it should get cleaned up. Unless 91 lets it continue.

Frist, off its Fall ball. Are you sure it wasn't "our 22 Goalie couldn't make it so we had to pulled down a 21 so we could play?" Most clubs would pull up their 23. Yes, they have 10 to 12 holdbacks.. the "freshman" holdback could be at Pingry taking 8th/9th classes but technically be in the 8th grade.
Regardless Leading Edge is now 91 so it should get cleaned up. Unless 91 lets it continue.

Fall ball has nothing to do with it. I was talking about the rule interpretation. LE on age parents were talking about a bunch of boys. They thought their sons had a fair chance at playing time. Not even close when they found out their kid was competing against 15 year olds. Not just the Pingry students...what about the seton hall kid and the others arriving in the spring. This is a bastardized version of hold back. Maryland doesn’t even sink that low. I hope it’s worth it. Wins against kids 2 years younger will not get you anywhere.

The on age parents should go back to the clubs they left or find another team. NJ is low on top-level talent and most of the clubs will take the players back at a major discount just to show the 23s and 24s LE is not what they think.

Only way LE changes is when the cash stops coming in.

No doubt LE is better. But from their whole pool of players they only achieved progress by pulling players down 2 years while currently enrolled in high school. That’s horrendous and would not be tolerated in other sports. The parents of those kids are a joke. They have zero confidence in their son’s ability to perform on age. Says a lot. Weak parents, weak kids and a weak program.

If a kid is in 8th grade but is going to reclass next year does he play as a 22 or 23 this summer

If a kid is in 8th grade but is going to reclass next year does he play as a 22 or 23 this summer

If a kid is in 8th grade but is going to reclass next year does he play as a 22 or 23 this summer

Fall ball has nothing to do with it. I was talking about the rule interpretation. LE on age parents were talking about a bunch of boys. They thought their sons had a fair chance at playing time. Not even close when they found out their kid was competing against 15 year olds. Not just the Pingry students...what about the seton hall kid and the others arriving in the spring. This is a bastardized version of hold back. Maryland doesn’t even sink that low. I hope it’s worth it. Wins against kids 2 years younger will not get you anywhere.

Everyone's main argument is about the supposed safety/insurance issue once a young kid is injured by a holdback. But after thousands of games, it hasn't happened. Or at least no parent of an injured kid has made enough noise or lawsuits about it to impact anything.

Give it up. As long as the major clubs using and encouraging holdbacks are in charge (which they are), it won't change. They have the best teams, run the tournaments, do camps, get the most kids at tryouts, generate recruits, get the publicity, have strong college connections, and so on.

You think they want a level playing field? You think they will change out of doing what's right? You think they fear some hollow US Lacrosse insurance issue?

Holdbacks thrive in lacrosse, not in life.

Just for your information... my son is back from school and we are enjoying our thanksgiving vacation together. He plays on a top 20 DI college team and he tells me that out of a class of 17 Freshman, he is the only freshman who is 18 years old (on age for his grade). He is generally a year younger than every other Freshman on the team.

Some were held back when they were very young. Some were held back in 8th grade and some took a PG year or decided to wait a year between high school and college because of the availability of scholarship money.

To his knowledge no one is getting a full ride. Most are getting 25% scholarships or just $10k or $15k and many will not be receiving them next year. Receipt will depend upon their performance.

Know that each family has to 'donate' money to the team and so far this year we have been asked to donate to several charities the team sponsors.

While neither I nor my son I wouldn't change anything, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow here other than the friends he will make and the experiences he will come away with.

Just for your information... my son is back from school and we are enjoying our thanksgiving vacation together. He plays on a top 20 DI college team and he tells me that out of a class of 17 Freshman, he is the only freshman who is 18 years old (on age for his grade). He is generally a year younger than every other Freshman on the team.

Some were held back when they were very young. Some were held back in 8th grade and some took a PG year or decided to wait a year between high school and college because of the availability of scholarship money.

To his knowledge no one is getting a full ride. Most are getting 25% scholarships or just $10k or $15k and many will not be receiving them next year. Receipt will depend upon their performance.

Know that each family has to 'donate' money to the team and so far this year we have been asked to donate to several charities the team sponsors.

While neither I nor my son I wouldn't change anything, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow here other than the friends he will make and the experiences he will come away with.

Thank you for sharing. Nothing we don't know but everything rarely summarized so cleanly. College sports such a business now. Inflated rosters hurt more then help. Difficult to use more than get used. Compete against your teammates more than opponents.

I am sure this is all true. But a key question is, is he going to a better college than he otherwise would have? For me, who is fully expecting to pay full freight for my non sports playing other child, or full ride if my son can go Ivy or top DIII, that is a big reason to play beyond the love of the game, friendships, etc...

Sorry the hold back issue will never seem right to me. Whether it is in NY when a DOB before December holds back. Call me old school. You just didnt want your son to be the youngest kid, and you could have changed his stripes by making him one of the oldest knowing that would give him advantages.

Watching the NCAA football it is ridiculous when they say true freshman when they are 20 years old!!!! As sad as having 16 year old freshman. No freshman should be 16 right now, but there are. No Soph should be 17 but there are

There are plenty of 16 year old freshman now. Crazy how one of the main reason for lacrosse going grade base was early recruiting of 9th graders. NCAA did right thing and made 11th grade the first year to talk with and recruit players last May. Even NCAA stopping ER hasnt slowed down the holdback mess at youth lacrosse or grade base at youth lacrosse.
Clearly an advantage at youth level and to some extant at HS level. Hopefully Youth will at least go back to age one day...but even that I am not sure of with so many clubs encouraging and having holdbacks.

It’s too soon to say that he new NCAA rule about junior year recruiting has had no impact - it was just implemented,. I've read that recruiting tourneys/showcases where 2020s and 2021s are in attendance have seen little (or greatly lessened) obvious interest by college coaches towards those grades. We'll see see over the next few years whether the rule change has any impacts on the hold back aspect, but any impact there was always going to take some time, if at all.

Great post. I have a college Junior who hates Lacrosse and would love to quit. My son is a hard worker and starter on the team. It is even worse for the othe boys who don’t even have a shot of seeing the field and are getting very little money. All the coaches are nasty bastards, they are not at all what you see at the recruiting visits. They are unreasonable with their expectations. We have encouraged him to stick it out, although he insists that Lacrosse is ruining his like. The one good thing is the friendships he has made, they will have that bond forever.

Its tough now, but once he is done, he will look at it a lot differently. There is so much to be said about the perseverance it takes to complete 4 years of college athletics. I used to hate getting up and practicing on frozen grass at 6am in February and March. It felt like the worst job ever at times, but we pushed through it for our teammates. If they are going through it, we cant stay in bed with a clean conscience. When I have to do things I hate doing for my job or any other aspect of my life, I always remember dragging myself out of bed at 5am, breaking into a sweat in 15 degree weather, then standing and listening to our coaches talk while freezing our [ChillLaxin]es off for the remainder of practice. Everything else seems easy compared to that stuff. Wasn't overly excited about it back then, but would not trade the experience for anything now. Once every man gets to the age where they can no longer compete at that level, your appreciation of the adversity you pushed through increases 10 fold. Then you try to help your kids understand how important that commitment and work is later in life.

Parents may continue to hold their kids back - but the advantage of playing against kids who haven't gone through puberty will be significantly diminished by their Jr. year.

I agree that you are in essence correct, however, it will take 10 years for people to figure that out.

I think that the early recruiting being behind us, it give less of an advantage to the holdbacks and reclass kids.

While I agree as it relates to recruiting. It still is an advantage at youth level, And in Maryland with all the private school kids held back. It will be hard to get the clubs to change. Top clubs are associated with MIAA schools in some ways. In MD that is where the best lacrosse players want to end up...In the MIAA . Rest of the country may not be as unique with holdbacks like MD..so I guess there is hope.

I agree - I didn't play lax in college but played football. Kind of the opposite heck - 135° on the astroturf for the first few weeks of practice, and cold and snowy practices and playoffs games at the end of the season, and 6+ days a week for the better part of 4 months. You definitely have a better appreciation of what you were willing to go through then when you are looking back. And for those that haven't experienced it, it's hard to begin to appreciate the time, effort and the competitiveness that is involved - it's a huge jump up from HS, even from a large program.