BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Age Verification

I was just alerted to this message board so please bear with me and let me get the facts in order regarding the Edge lacrosse program:

The Edge lacrosse program enters their teams in divisions that are one year younger than the actual age of their entire team? They are NOT reclassifying, they are just out right cheating. On top of this, some kid got his arm broken by one of the older Edge players. Do I have this all correct?

Who is permitting this to occur?
Who is ultimately liable if a player is seriously injured?
What can we do as parents to protect our children?
Any ideas?

lets not forget that the Edge team probably "re-classed" their "9th graders" last year anyway, so the "current 9th graders" they are recruiting for the 8th grade (2019) team are actually 10th graders. They can't get away with this in ice hockey, USA Hockey will not allow it, so they turn to lacrosse (since Canadians are terrible at football, baseball, soccer and basketball, all sports that are governed by birth year, enough said...)

For 2017s Edge specifies 1998 birth year. In the US 2017s would be late 1998 and 1999s, depending on school enrollment cut offs.

The 2019 is the most shocking as they specify they want 9th graders ( 2018s ) and talented 8th graders, and will compete at u15 tourneys. With the exception of nationals i15 typically preclude high school players.

We need to be vocal with our coaches and clubs who in turn must be vocal with the organizers of any tournament that Edge is entered in. US Lacrosse should be helping out here but they are not.

Unfortunately tons of American teams do it too.

As published team policy? Don't think so. Purposely recruiting kids one grade older and trying to rationuze it via some school year mumbo jumbo is not the same as a team having a few holdbacks.

A couple of Canadian kids steal a few roster spots on Div1 teams and you people are losing your minds!!

If your worrying about your litle boy playing against a reclassed kid a year older what the heck ya going to do when he gets to college and has to play against kids 3 years older!!

Chess club has openings

In college they won't play any kids! They will play against grown men of varying ages. That's the difference.

Most kids will hit puberty by then, the college level also really have the better kids playing. Right now a lot of is it for fun and people shouldnt cheat. Better question, what are these kids who play down going to do when they get to college and dont have the advantage anymore ?

Please show me a US based program that publishes a policy of registering teams one division below their teams actual age.

Read this carefully before posting a response

Edge Lacrosse website:

This is due to early reclassification of our 2018 and 2019 teams as they enter and prepare for FRESHMEN and Rising Freshmen events. Reclassification is the process in which a player competes in their PG (Post graduate) age division as opposed to their natural 4 year grad year. This is due to US players starting school a year later or staying back a year prior to entering high school. This results in US born players to be a year older as we enter highschool. With early recruitment becoming increasingly common among the top DI schools, it is important for our members to reclassify in grade 8/9 in order to compete against similar aged US counterparts. Reclassifying provides our members with the best opportunities to be recruited by the top DI programs in grade 9 and 10.

This could be the most narrow minded, idiotic response I've read on this entire message board. Chess club?

I am worried about my 6th grader, who has not yet hit puberty, playing against the 8th (or 9th) grader with hairy legs and a five o'clock shadow. pretty confident that things will even out some by high school.

Could not agree more with the prior poster's categorization of this comment as "idiotic". No one is talking about or concerned about size difference of college players. The concern is youth lacrosse and the move from age based teams to grade based teams (and the resulting absurd and dangerous mismatches of age and size as older players are held back or just ignore the applicable grade level and play down). Pretending there is no issue will not make the issue go away. Moreover, suggesting that players who are grade appropriate in age and size should either just deal with hold backs or"play chess" is beyond idiotic and speaks volumes as to the author.

What is the difference of U11 where kids can be 2 years apart vs grade based where most kids will be within 15 months given most hold backs are likely summer birthdays?

Maybe the Chess comment was thrown out there to see who would bite.
Fish On!!

There were a healthy amount of 2017 boys playing today for their HS varsity teams. There was also a good amount of 2018's and we even noticed a few 2019's families on the fields today.

The difference is they choose to play up they knew they were playing older opponents. The few young ins' I knew playing their folks did some homework. Their sons also have the bodies and skill to hold their own.

Knowledge is power. Not knowing who you are playing is dangerous.

If programs like Edge are permitted to enter teams "down" and age bracket by tournament program directors, this will become the new norm. All "elite" programs will start doing the same thing to remain competitive.

Youth lacrosse needs leaders, who will step up?

We all need to step up. Write a letter to US Lacrosse, and if in Canada to the CLA. Talk to tournament organizers and put the pressure on. It may take time, but Age Verification Cards need to become a reality.

This Canadien club doesn't understand what reclassification means. As I understand it, when US players are re-classified, they retake 8th grade. In the example of the boy who had his arm broken, the 2019 players are all grad year 2019. The Edge club makes an assumption that ALL of the players will do a post grad year so they decided to register teams based on their post grad graduation year.....?

This is a twisted way to gain an advantage for your clubs players. I feel for the kid who got hurt but lacrosse players get injured. As a parent, I would like to have a choice as to if I allow my son to play against older kids, we shouldn't be deceived. That's what this is about for me. We, as parents, are being deceived so I do not have the ability to make a decision with the facts at hand.

What is this "We" [lacrosse] ? What are you French now ? Some o u LI parents are doing it now. It will get worse. Now these future stars are starting school late here on LI so it's not as obvious when they are 13. Everyone is nuts. Parents dreams of D1 is over for a lot of LI kids. Sport exploded all over by now. The Canadians are superior athletes. Plain and simple. Hockey , box , whatever it is they have it.

This needs to be shared with ALL TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS where this team plans to play. By notifying them of this practice, you void any waiver. You are notifying them that the brackets they set are not being adhered to, and therefore if they allow the team to compete in an improper age group, they are voiding their agreement as a vendor.
The truth of the matter is, this club is allowing 2018 players, who may have been held back already, to play as 2019 players. Even if you do a PG year, you still graduate your HS and then move on.
For those of you ranting and raving that re-classing is cheating, this club is actually the ones who are cheating.

You are not reading the program policy. Show me any US programs registering teams in lower age groups because the players MIGHT do a year of post grad before college. They are not reclassifying a few players by having them repeat 8th grade, they are reclassifying entire teams based on the premise that the kids expect to do a PG year. That's just wrong and no other program in the US is doing it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Why are tournament organizers allowing a program to cheat so blatantly? Why would they risk being sued by some kids family who gets badly injured?

Is this what lacrosse is all about? Its not how I was raised on the game and I'll not support nor foster this type of behavior. I spoke with our club teams director about this Canadian team from Edge Lacrosse because my son is a 2019 grad. I sent out emails to all of the parents describing what the Edge does and they are in complete agreement that we will not allow our kids to play them in a tournament.

Action must be taken, stop posting and start doing something. Send some emails to these Frog Thugs. One of our parents suggested the parents of the player who was injured should press charges against the Edge club. He's an attorney.

Agreed. I'm not going to allow my son to play against all the holdback loving clubs (Express North, Crabs, Laxachuesetts, Express). Come on now. While it's unfortunate that a boy got hurt, I think he was on the 2019 Express North team which has at least 8-9 holdbacks. Seems like they were possibly playing an aged appropriate team in Edge. Repeating 8th grade is crazy and should be a major embarrassment for the parents and kids. But it is what it is. Go on the field and play. This site seems to be way too consumed with cheaters. Let's move on.

Should re-title this thread "The Whining Parents". Glad my parents generation was not like the current one. They just dropped me off at practice and said "do your best and play hard". No wonder many people proclaim the pussification of America. Can't hover over little Johnnie forever folks.

Edge should just be evaluated for what they are: a team that is a year older than the divisions they are currently permitted to enter. So 2020 Edge should be welcome at any tournament.....provided they take their rightful place in the 2019 division and so on and so forth for all their teams. Given how they advertise their program on their own website I don't see how they could be surprised. Nor, as an attorney, do I think that tournamant directors would be absolved of liability if an Edge kid seriously hurt someone. Even a passing view of the Edge website site reveals their philosophy so it will be tough for any director to claim ignorance. Presumably there is some basic due diligence associated with hosting a tournament. Somebody will get hurt, a lawsuit will follow, and then maybe people who currently look the other way will start paying serious attention.

I am Canadian - my son was born in Nov 1998 and is in grade 11, so he is a 2016. He is 6'2" 210 lbs and a very physical D man.
If he went to school in most states he would be in grade 10 being a Nov baby, so now he is a 2017. If he was to repeat grade 8 like some American kids that would make him a 2018!!

If he were to go to college in 2016 he would show up at college as a 17 year old. Most College coaches we have spoke to have stated the they dont want 17 year olds on thier roster and he should do a PG year/reclass.

He doesnt play for Edge but dont blame Edge for the whole reclass fiasco in the end it is the Colleges that make the decisions and will pay for most of the schooling so if they want reclassified kids, people will reclass!!!

If the kids broken arm was a broken neck, would we dismiss this as whining? Not a topic that should garner so much attention? Get real people, this issue needs to be addressed head on. Save the sport and don't allow kids to be placed in harms way without notice.

why doesn't Suffolk lacrosse have the same thing as Suffolk pal football they use a program called direct roster when the players are registered a pictures and put it is get printed out with their name birthdate and organization
it needs to start somewhere

If you feel Edge should do that ok. What about the US teams ? Are they dismissed because they only have some on the teams that do it ? Let's not be hypocritical here. Every team is doing it now. Whether it's the whole team or just a few.

2018 crabs have six 1998 b days and a bunch of 1999. That is just plain cheating.
If they played age, they be at best just an average team

This post points out the irony and hypocrisy of the current holdback / age based team fiasco. As long as the big east coast clubs (and compliant parents with visions of D-1 positions for their sons) can game the rules by going to age based teams and holding kids back to get age and size advantage (the euphemism the "advantage of time" is precious); everything is just fine. Anyone who complains is a "whiner" and an over protective "helicopter parent" who just will not let the boys play. However, as soon as a team dares to be constituted entirely of holdbacks (which is the logical end result to the system gaming), then there is strident bitching and moaning that that team is "cheating". How dare a team be created with just holdbacks and players playing down. Put another way, it’s OK if we do it for some players (and get a competitive advantage over other teams), but it is not OK (in fact it's cheating or much worse) if another team does it for all players and gets a competitive advantage over us.

The problem is that using grade level as the standard for organizing teams is no standard at all, if (as is the case); parents, coaches are willing hold kids back or simply play kids down. In a grade based system how can you even challenge or enforce against players playing down? There is no proof as to what grade a kid is in (which is the point of course and what makes grade based teams so seductive until it backfires).

As arbitrary as age based teams can be around the edges, it is the only solution for youth lacrosse. A prior poster had it right: Lacrosse at this point has no integrity.

That's why this thread exists to prompt some kind of U.S. Lacrosse action to regulate tournament age/grade rules. It's the wild west right now and that's not safe.

The best course of action right now is to encourage your program to only pick tournaments that actually have or enforce age or grade rules. Sadly, those seem to be the exception to the rule.

By the way, regarding Canadian age rules for grades, I think they are only about 1 month different than the rule for NY, which is in turn only about 3 months different than U.S. Lacrosse. Certainly not different enough to justify dropping teams down an entire grade level.

And since when did wanting collective action for safe and competitively fair gameplay count as whining? Are all the sports that have it a bunch of whiners? I'd say holding back your kid for artificial competitive advantage is the ultimate "whine", but then again I can certainly see why parents do it for recruiting reasons.

There is a very important difference. Edge Lacrosse signs up entire teams in younger divisions as their program policy. When you play teams that have a few kids how were reclassified its the decision of the parents. Additionally, the Edge Lacrosse program is registering teams in younger brackets based on an assumption that all of the players will play a post graduation year and basing the registration on that year. Individual reclassified kids are being moved in school to the lower grad year now. In my mind, these two points differentiate the two scenarios and frankly, its not even debatable.

The fact is that most of the parents that complain about the holdbacks say it's about safety but in reality it's about the older kids dominating on the field and getting the better recruiting options.

Just be honest and say that you don't like older kids taking away precious D1 spots from your kid.

I don't look at this thread or yourself as whining. You have an educated civilized approach. It's the person who cap locks and writes d bag cheaters. They are going about it all wrong. IMO. There's peaceful protest and then there's the people who burn and loot. I have no symphathy and they just annoy me. There's a wrong and a right way.

Here is another way to look at it, if the Edge players reclassed and repeated 8th grade (like US players are doing), when they are in 9th grade they should "actually" be in 10th grade, correct? Their website plainly states that they are looking for 9th graders to play on their 8th grade team. Those 9th graders are "actually" 10th graders. That is where I have a problem. To take it one step further, if the parents held the boys back in kindergarten (like a lot of people do), he is "actually" an 11th grader, playing against 8th graders, give me a break.

in Canada you cant hold your kid back for kindergarten and a quarter of the kids start school a year early as the school system is Jan-Dec unlike USA that is Sept-Aug. You are misinformed on Canadian school system.

Your truly do not get it. It is not about the D1 spots (although I suspect it is for you). It is about showing up at a tournament with kids 11 to 13 years old and playing in brackets with kids 14 and 15 year olds. Not so bad for the 13 year old playing against a 14 year old, but quite a problem when the 15 year old goes after the 11 year old in a game setting. When that happens it is not a game, but a bad and dangerous (yes dangerous) farce.