BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Crabs Lacrosse / Baltimore Lacrosse Club

So seriously folks, this is an honest question, how do your kids feel socially about being held back. I guess it is boon to kids who struggle in school, because they can pretend they need the boost for athletics.

However, I can't imagine that dads of 8th graders are comfortable having your young men at the school dance.

What happens if you hold them back and they end up playing D3 or club anyway? Will that still be okay? Seriously unless you are after a top D3, it is not difficult to play D3 for the average club lax player if he has excellent grades.

I really am completely baffled by this whole trend.

""The fairest system would be the one that soccer uses. Age by single year - u9,u10,u11,u12 etc. But the grade system detractors seem only to focus the holdbacks. In my opinion the 2nd fairest system is Grade. BTW my kids are in public schools, are in the proper grade age and 1 has a summer bday.""

The right system and the one that parents and children know is the fairest is obviously age based at the youth level. Grade based might be the next fairest in most parts of the country as the holdback mentality isn't so prevalent. Most parts of the country children aren't regularly held back due to a late birthday. Maryland private schools and their parents have taken holding children back to a new level. And while there is plenty with Summer Birthdays , there are plenty with birthdays earlier including prior year. Why do these select players enjoy a benefit others dont at youth level. There is many children that could use the same benefit. If it was here and there with holdbacks , no one would care, but there will be teams with many holdbacks on them . Goes against everything that is right in youth sports, letting select kids get an advantage. I have children in MIAA school and know all about the massive amount of children heldback.

I agree, when on age boys start to hit puberty it is dangerous enough for the kids who have not started yet, my son was a 14 year old 98 lb 8th grader playing with other 14 year-olds who were 180 lbs and shaving. That was unavoidable.

Guess what, plenty of age appropriate kids are getting offers, unless your child is so underdeveloped it is socially an issue or academically challenged you shouldn't hold them back. If they are academically challenged an extra year of 8th grade is very unlikely to change their IQ, so plying a D1 sport might not be a good idea in college if you would like them to get a degree.

If you really are concerned about safety, the fairest system is that used by football through age 15 which uses age and weight. But do you really want to go there?


Age/Weight Division Age(s) Certification Weight Range
TINY-MITE
(older/lighter) 5-6-7. 35-75 lbs

MITEY-MITE
(older/lighter) 7-8-9. 45-90 lbs

JUNIOR PEE WEE
(older/lighter) 8-9-10. 60-105 lbs
11 60-85 lbs
PEE WEE
(older/lighter) 9-10-11. 75-120 lbs
12. 75-100 lbs

JUNIOR [lacrosse]
(older/lighter) 10-11-12. 90-145 lbs
13. 90-120 lbs

[lacrosse]
(older/lighter) 12-13-14. 105-170 lbs
15 105-140 lbs

It is important to understand why we have grade based groups and why that is happening now as opposed to earlier in the youth game. There is nothing that clubs can do to regulate HS play and there are no HS rules against kids being older for their class. I think this debate is about the youth game. Kids between 8 and 15. Give US Lacrosse some credit. They tried. Here is a link to the Gold Stick Program on their website: http://www.uslacrosse.org/resources/programs-grants/gold-stick-program.aspx

The shortcoming of all this is US Lacrosse implemented guidelines, suggested baseline standards and then listed out some best practices / exceeding the standards. One of the best practices to exceed standards is age based youth teams with further player contact rules. To quote:

Best Practices/Exceeding the standard:
Implementation of additional rules to further emphasis and “exceed” the published rules (i.e., no body contact at all levels U15 and below, grouping players for competition by individual age/year – U15, U14, U13, U12, etc).

I believe this was first circulated by US Lacrosse in early spring of 2014. Did any of you see this link or hear the term Gold Stick Program from your clubs or club owners? Probably not. Definitely not the club my kids play for. Also in spring 2014, and close to immediately after US Lacrosse published this the club owners who control Maryland and DMV lacrosse moved quickly to establish grade based teams going on down to 3rd graders for NPYLL, HOCO and club tournament play. Does anyone believe that timing is an unrelated coincidence? Even if you do not believe that club owners are implicitly celebrating the holdback grades epidemic, all of us would have to at least admit there is a commercial reason for it. A 16 year hold entering 9th grader will have spent two more tuition paying years in the club / clinics / showcase system before "graduating" from club to HS play.

Here is my poke at this...the other posters are right. Sometimes you'll get a 98 pound 14 year old out there with a 180 pound 14 year old. Sometimes you'll find a legit new Mikey Powell who is a 98 pound 12 year old who could play up with 14 year olds. At that point it is up to parental discretion to put a kid into this contact sport or not. No system needs to be set up to make those imbalances go away. What we are talking about now is grade based youth teams are an implicit incentive for parents to go to the "Outliers" book bible. Older, more developed kids will have a sports advantage. I don't care about kids doing pre-first or whatever you call it in Baltimore, but I do share the disgust of many parents redshirting their 8th or 9th graders. The HS rules leave that be for now, but the club owners didn't need to do this to the youth game. If they want to do more teams and make more money, fine. Do U15, U14, U13, etc. just like the US Lacrosse best practices state. Why is that status quo so bad?

One more point: most larger club owners now privately insure their leagues and events. Why? One reason why is if you don't follow US Lacrosse safety guidelines, US Lacrosse won't permit those same leagues or events under their umbrella insurance policy. That plainly means we as parents are also paying higher club and events fees to cover the private insurance costs to preserve grade based youth teams.

The bottom line this is a youth sport. Get off the XBox and iPhones for exercise, socially mix with new friends, compete well, aspire to your goals (make varsity - go on to play college lacrosse) be a good sport and have fun. We can celebrate that and still see some of these kids go on to be Hopkins or UMD commits -- that happens anyways in any competitive sport and there is little to nothing you can do to make your son the new Mikey Powell. I would also wager most of your sons don't want to be the new Mikey Powell as much as their Dads. My kid was worried that I forgot the team snacks and asked several times in the car on the way to his games last weekend if I got a certain flavor of fruit roll-ups. And that was just perfect for 10 years old, thank you very much.

The Pop Warner football model fails at the older brackets. There are too many 7th/8th graders who are too big for JM and M.

Our shcool district has middle school football which is no weight limit. Age limits do apply, but they are structured that a 1x holdback could play. (a 2x holback would be ineligible to play in 8th grade)

The O-Line at our middle school average 180 lbs and none were holdbacks. None were terribly overweight either. Boys hit puberty at different times.

Sounds like a Crab Dad is tipping his red solo cup again. Cheers Crabby, see you on the field

In the upcoming recruiting tournaments can the kids that have not been held back / reclassified have a special stripe put on their helmets so everyone will know they are younger than most of their peers. It would be like a badge of honor! Unlike the slinky holdbacks that I am sure would not want to be identified as such.

I concur!!!

College coaches don't care. They are looking at classes, and who are the best in that class. Do you think college basketball coaches care if a guy in, say, the Class of 2016 was originally in the Class of 2015? It happens in all sports.

What a bunch of whiners.

Way off point there Ryan. This is not a debate about recruiting, and it is well established that kids will repeat grades to play HS ball a year or a few years older and there are no rules against that. The grades teams debate is about the youth game. Or are we all once again just a bunch of dumb and uninformed whiners. Is your point that colleges are evaluating 7th, 5th or 4th graders and that is all they care about? That would be news to all of us. And I like that you picked basketball. Yes, basketball club play is by age. The college coaches in that sport don't seem dazzled or confused about what HS year their recruits are in. Enlighten us or get on topic, or better yet grow a spine.

Surely the impact of adding 10 players who were 2017 a month ago should help, No?

As it would for any team. But like most teams, 10 former 2017's did not reclass. Try again.

2017 is a 10 grade team. Might have a bunch of 11 grade age kids on team but 10 grade is past youth lacrosse...Dont like the older kids on teams but in Maryland it is the norm .

Yeah, well several kids did not play and they got 3 studs from hawks.
Trust me, won't happen again.

Basketball is grade based and has just as many re-class kids.

At the highest level of AAU you will have a whole team do it.

Get with it....

Try again. Sure looks like they beat the Hawks in Finals. Hogan would love to have some of his Hawks players moonlight AGAINST the Hawks. Good effort though dumb As#.
http://www.alohatournaments.com/Beach-Lax.aspx

....in OT....

....and lost to the Hawks during the spring season in a full-length, refereed game....

....both great games.

Dumb [lacrosse]? Hmmn put your name in there coach.
Moonlight against Hawks? what does that mean???
Dumb [lacrosse].???

That says a lot about which club does a better job developing talent.

CRABS are a great collector of talent, but they certainly dont develop it. [lacrosse], many of their returning players arent even developed enough to make it the next year! But, they'll collect a few that developed elsewhere and holdback a few others.....

So the team that won the tournament got "3 studs" from the Hawks team they played in the finals? Not likely.

Developing players takes time and $, that would be time the directors and partners can't spend on the beach and $ that can't be spent on beach houses...all about the bottom line at Crabs

FCA and Hawks played in the finals and it was a great game. The Crabs were halfway back to Baltimore.

Is Ryan like Mr Crabs and his players the Crabby paddies???

Crabs beat Hawks by one in last minute of NPYLL
Ship..

3 Hawks players then joined Crabs....

Ryan is affectionately known as "King Crab"!

November 9th....@ Hopkins....Crabs 2018 vs Team 91....and FCA....

I would trust Crabs middle and HS teams that get top players from other programs will win a lot of games. But to the extent Crabs churn the rosters each tryout period does also mean they don't develop players well enough and that player development is not a primary focus. Poaching players leads to success and the Crabs are a program with success. But they don't develop players well enough to keep a stable group together.

Keep telling your self that. Good one, second tier team parent

No loyalty in the Crab program...constant turnover, always looking for the bigger (or older) kid...and adding a hardshell team when convenient.

The facts are what they are. Returning players getting cut from CRABS and then can't make top teams elsewhere. Whats that tell you about their great coaching and player development????
Poachers and collectors, thats what they are.

Wow! A Runtown of Club Teams in Maryland..I want my 6 grader who I have held back to be recruited by the top college teams and get a full ride. But where to go to play club???? This is the impression I get from reading here...

Crabs..Don't Develope players, poach, No loyalty, Money Money , Money, Love their holdbacks,Basically suck!
Looneys..daddy Ball, Losing players, Basically Suck
Breakers..Money, Money , Money, Play down, Lose players Basically suck!
FCA .. daddy ball,Poach, Not very nice, Basically Suck !
Put Team Name Here...Basically Suck!

Hawks - develop kids great - kick butt enough to get 2nd place - then get poached of best players

Hawks is a hidden commodity. No bs. Parents are passionate but mean well, unlike crabs, looneys, fca.

Hawks-Play daddy ball and second rate events...

Just curious, which Hawks teams play daddy ball?

All of them.

Not true.