BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Team 91 MD

He may be one of the youngest at McD, but only if the rest are also holdbacks. SP would not allow him to re-class because he was doing well in school and athletically. McD was happy to allow it, might even have encouraged it, but it's not because he was too young. March 2004 birthday. He started public school on age, but even then he was too good to attend the public school for which we was zoned - they bussed him outside of his school zone.

Most boys at McD born after March are holdbacks, and that is in the 75-90 % range. They only have 45-70 boys per grade. Generally from the two grades my sons are involved with. I would say over 50% are holdbacks.

MM was against holdbacks the first few years his kid played. Talked trash about holdbacks. Then he quickly got on with the program as it is written in the MIAA, hold im back or suffer.

Come on Mark. Save the BS for Dino at Duke. Now ..Give it to the 9th grader..or at least Break his arms. LOL

Take it to the holdback forum.

MM is against many things until it comes to himself or his kids. They all put the "exception" in exceptional.

Of course a school charging $40K is going to love having kids spend an extra year under their roof. Not surprised that they encourage it.

Please, All the private schools promote Character Education of Students and Staff , they are on the side of justice for all.

Show me you're a stunad without telling me you are a stunad.

Spoken like an apologist to the holdback world, who wants to justify his reasoning ,..He is right when it comes to the majority of boys who want to play lacrosse. they hold them back for sports. There are a lot of students who are held back for education, most dont have anything to do with lacrosse.

And the bottom line is,,,do what you want with your child, but that gives you no right to play down against other children in youth sports. I bet you think that is ok too? LOL

I don't have a dog in this fight, but rules are technically not being broken when the spring youth leagues and tournaments are based on grade year. In my opinion, US Lax should just settle on the full birth year, not a 9/1 cut off.

US Lax should just settle on the full birth year, not a 9/1 cut off.[quote][/quote]

What does that mean? The full birth year? Are you saying 1/1? It's been discussed a million times and the January - March parents love it and the October, November, December parents detest it. The only date which will satisfy the age argument is the actual birth date where a kid moves up the day of their birthday. The kid is the youngest and progresses to the oldest. Then the January parents detest it because little Tommy goes from probably the biggest and fastest to probably on the slower and smaller side. It's never ending.

Travel/Club soccer is by birth year. So, if you were born in 2009, you play on a 2009 team.

Sure the Jan kids have and advantage. But that advantage is limited to a 1-year age difference. Instead of the (2 year+) difference we are currently seeing in club lacrosse when it is split by grade.

Okay on the 1 year difference but I want it to be June 1. Why should your arbitrary day on a calendar be better than mine?

The argument is for birth year. That’s not arbitrary. It’s the calendar year…literally the start of a new year. This is how every other sport aside from lacrosse handles it.

You got in playground fights a lot when you were little didn’t you?

Not true. "The Age Determination Date for a Little League Baseball player is the actual age of a child on August 31 of the current year. " The January 1st start date of the calendar year is the ultimate example of arbitrary. What is the argument against using the actual birth date of the player? The kid has a birthday - they move up to the next age level. The only minor argument is the practice schedule might change. Tough, practices change all the time.

USA football uses 8/1 and I think basketball does to. There goes the birth year argument.

Soccer uses 1/1 - 12/31, as all of society does.

USA Soccer is based on the European model of soccer development. You also are usually required to not play any other sport in their top clubs and academy teams. USA soccer is over the top in their quest to compete against the European countries with 10 times less people.

Going by a 9/1 Birthday or maybe 8/1 is close to the start of majority of schools in this country and keeps all kids in their proper age grade. Common sense says that is best solution.

My kid is an August birthday. Let's go with 8/1. All agreed? Great. Shouldn't be a problem to implement.

School has nothing to do with it, you're already against grade based. Let them make some new friends. If you're born in 2009, you play on a 2009 team. It would work.

Your argument for European soccer model is flawed, Most soccer players go onto a club team , not school to compete. Total different model. Year ( Jan ) makes sense as its the easiest to rate players and the world soccer youth plays a strict age based all over the world. So easy to determine age based on that. 2001. 2002. etc.

Most of our USA youth sports boys go onto college and play. So it makes sense to try to get as close to grade as possible ( Sept , Aug ) without the crazy holdback world becoming to much of a problem. Youth makes sense to be Sept or Aug. Common sense

Schools in MD don't - they use Sept 1, just like lacrosse and Football.

Actually there is no "rule" to break because HS does not follow UL Lax guidelines for age, they follow grade. Club lax doesn't follow US Lax rules for age, they use grad year which is a moving target when kids choose to reclass. "Rules" aren't being broken, they are being used to give an advantage to a player by allowing them to compete with/against generally younger players.

Those that are held back for reasons other than sports are usually held back a much younger ages than 8th grade. Like all elitists', it's OK to be against something for others while feeling entitled to do what you want - when you are the greatest, why should the rules for those below you apply?

That rings true to many in this area as the main drivers of playing down in youth sports is the " Character Driven " students/parents of the MIAA private schools in Baltimore.

Classic example of the hypocrisy is the debacle of Gilman football a few years ago. Old Poogy recruited top football players who overwhelmed and destroyed the other MIAA schools, Their solution, not play Gilman in Football. While they are on the winning end with recruitment, alls ok,,,soon as they start getting beaten by bigger and stronger players, quit... And that is at the High School level not youth.

My son plays on an academy team and also plays lacrosse and basketball. No issues. Ties in events go to the “In season” sport. The coaches get pissed from time to time. If they don’t like it, they know they can bench my kid. But they haven’t yet.

Loyola left the A league when they couldn't compete against St Francis in football.
Quit complaining, take the loss, and shut up.

You don’t think the parents holding the kids back earlier than 8th grade have an agenda and know exactly what they are doing? I know “lacrosse families” who know when their kids are born they will be doing this at a younger age. In elementary school as to not make it look obvious. They know about the “real advantages” of that extra year or two younger. Makes confidence in the kid younger being the best early. Also, extra training year. Real Advantages!!!

I’ve heard people discuss this. I was shocked. But it definitely happens all the time!!! Rules need to be changed to make it fair for “on age” kids.

[/quote] Classic example of the hypocrisy is the debacle of Gilman football a few years ago. Old Poogy recruited top football players who overwhelmed and destroyed the other MIAA schools, Their solution, not play Gilman in Football. While they are on the winning end with recruitment, alls ok,,,soon as they start getting beaten by bigger and stronger players, quit... And that is at the High School level not youth.[/quote]

Not quite. Poggi recruited from across the country for athletics, and brought in kids who were physically exceptional - much bigger, stronger, and faster than the other kids in the MIAA.

If a recruiting pool is a roughly 20 mile radius surrounding a school, the coach can expect a certain number of strong athletes to matriculate each year around which to build a team and a program, and expects to compete with other schools with the same constraints.

If the recruiting pool is the entire US, then it isn't an MIAA team anymore - it is a US team, and it looks more like college recruiting than a local high school. It was like a D3 school playing an NFL team. - it wasn't just unfair, it was unsafe.

There were other problems with the approach. Parents who had paid tuition since lower school suddenly had to watch the ringers come in and displace the kids who had grown up in the school. Kids who were solid players in middle school were unable to play much in upper school due to the recruiting program.

It was costly - the coach insisted on a certain number of scholarships each year in order to feed the machine he built.

It caused problems in school, as many of the recruited players struggled with rigorous academics.

Other schools complained, but the MIAA couldn't do much. Eventually, the other schools saw the only choice was to opt out.

Notice they didn't stop playing the other MIAA teams - just the one that had an unfair advantage.

Eventually, things changed. Poggi moved on. The other MIAA A conference teams returned to playing against Gilman.

Sounds like the state of MIAA lacrosse right now.

These schools cant compete with kids from just a 20 mile radius.

Open the dorms, let kids live with assistant coaches.

Not quite. Poggi recruited from across the country for athletics, and brought in kids who were physically exceptional - much bigger, stronger, and faster than the other kids in the MIAA.

If a recruiting pool is a roughly 20 mile radius surrounding a school, the coach can expect a certain number of strong athletes to matriculate each year around which to build a team and a program, and expects to compete with other schools with the same constraints.

If the recruiting pool is the entire US, then it isn't an MIAA team anymore - it is a US team, and it looks more like college recruiting than a local high school. It was like a D3 school playing an NFL team. - it wasn't just unfair, it was unsafe.

There were other problems with the approach. Parents who had paid tuition since lower school suddenly had to watch the ringers come in and displace the kids who had grown up in the school. Kids who were solid players in middle school were unable to play much in upper school due to the recruiting program.

It was costly - the coach insisted on a certain number of scholarships each year in order to feed the machine he built.

It caused problems in school, as many of the recruited players struggled with rigorous academics.

Other schools complained, but the MIAA couldn't do much. Eventually, the other schools saw the only choice was to opt out.

Notice they didn't stop playing the other MIAA teams - just the one that had an unfair advantage.

Eventually, things changed. Poggi moved on. The other MIAA A conference teams returned to playing against Gilman.[/quote]

Except no MIAA schools ever stopped playing Gilman in football. They waited until Biff went to St. Frances, then they refused to play them.

Sounds like CHC & BL. Make BL play in the A conference for every sport then and see if they use those dorms to recruit for every sport, as well as "The International Students".

Not quite. Poggi recruited from across the country for athletics, and brought in kids who were physically exceptional - much bigger, stronger, and faster than the other kids in the MIAA.

If a recruiting pool is a roughly 20 mile radius surrounding a school, the coach can expect a certain number of strong athletes to matriculate each year around which to build a team and a program, and expects to compete with other schools with the same constraints.

If the recruiting pool is the entire US, then it isn't an MIAA team anymore - it is a US team, and it looks more like college recruiting than a local high school. It was like a D3 school playing an NFL team. - it wasn't just unfair, it was unsafe.

There were other problems with the approach. Parents who had paid tuition since lower school suddenly had to watch the ringers come in and displace the kids who had grown up in the school. Kids who were solid players in middle school were unable to play much in upper school due to the recruiting program.

It was costly - the coach insisted on a certain number of scholarships each year in order to feed the machine he built.

It caused problems in school, as many of the recruited players struggled with rigorous academics.

Other schools complained, but the MIAA couldn't do much. Eventually, the other schools saw the only choice was to opt out.

Notice they didn't stop playing the other MIAA teams - just the one that had an unfair advantage.

Eventually, things changed. Poggi moved on. The other MIAA A conference teams returned to playing against Gilman.[/quote]

Except no MIAA schools ever stopped playing Gilman in football. They waited until Biff went to St. Frances, then they refused to play them.[/quote]

The "golden seal" that Biff broke (along with, I recall, the girls softball coach at McD who successfully recruited out of state "more than usual"), was bringing "more than the unique case" out of state ringer into Gilman. Suddenly it was 6 kids. Then 10. And as the guy posted above, that's when the Gilman crowd started to bark.

But the comparison "Oh the racism" to the St. Frances thing is nuanced. Biff saw - and exploited - racial sensitivities by going to St. Frances and saying, "If it was fine for me to recruit 10 out of staters to Gilman, why can't I recruit 25 to St. Frances?"

Which would be a great debate, except that 10 was a problem at Gilman.

6 would have eventually been a problem at Gilman. But yes as long as it was 1,2,3 studs, the Gilman folks were as happy as could be with their Texas recruit. Would the MIAA schools have pitched a fit if Biff brought 1, 2, or 3 studs out of state to St. Frances? Maybe so, and if so, that would be racist.

Also (not sure whose comment), it's not 20 miles. It's more like 60-70 miles but the gravity is weaker away from the school. Kids come from across the shore to attend St. Mary's. Kids from PG, Annapolis, and PA attend Loyola, Gilman, and McD. Once the commute starts to hit about 40 miles, the more local schools should be able to recruit more effectively (Gunston on the shore, GP/Bullis/DeMatha in PG/MoCo). Nobody's taking a bus past DeMatha to attend Calvert Hall every day. Or taking the MARC past Georgetown Prep so they can get a seat at Gilman/Loyola.

Is the 91 box program Canadian style? Of is it just indoor lacrosse?

You get a Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" award for somehow tying this thread back into T91!

Valid question, too.

But I think the only true box programs north of DC are associated with Navy (league), MABLL (Arrows), Warthogs, True's "Atlantic Rage" or whatever, and whatever (if anything) Aberdeen Box has going on. Not sure of what "league play" will realistically pop up for our sons' age in January.

It's box practice, not games. They do some brief scrimmages at the end of the practices.

And, the parents of full paying tuition students (particularly Alumni) will not be happy when their son does not see the lax field because of recruited players from Florida, Texas , Colorado etc…

Sounds like the MIAA schools and their holdbacks didnt want to play against bigger and more athletic High School students from Gilman. I guess it is ok when the holdbacks in youth have the advantage and are running over on age youth players, not so OK when someone else ups the ante against them in HS and turns the table.....Total Hypocrisy of holdbacks .