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

I agree with your logic. Every team who will be playing them should be notified in advance of their age. The tournament director will ultimately be responsible for any injuries so I believe it will deter them from accepting their registration. There are plenty of great teams to stock tournament brackets.

Why not just have kids post their birth dates on their helmets?

Someone told me at soccer tourneys they have GPAs and SAT scores written on their arms, does anyone know if that is true?

If u think let's just say , Laxfest gets registration from Edge , do you really think they are going to tell them no ? And do really think the top LI teams would pull out ? I didn't think so.

Interesting, but I doubt it. I would laugh well maybe not laugh but sign if they put them in the same bracket as Express north. You could probably guess they will not be in the same bracket as Orange and will have to face Laxachusetts and Express before they get to Orange in the final

when did soccer players start wearing helmets with #s on them!! to funny

The fact of the matter is, it is dangerous to have a whole team play down against unsuspecting teams. So maybe the bigger clubs know Edge plays their team down, but what about the lesser known clubs from non hot bed areas?

It also makes me think that teams that play up on occasion like Crush and Express should not do so, as it could absolutely be a safety issue for these teams. That's a shame because now they will run over the 2020 division at Laxfest and end up playing one another.

I still am not sure how you can register a whole team for any year you like. Can any team just say- we will pg- so we choose to play xxxx year? Why not pg for 2 years? I know lax is mainly unregulated, but this practice seems really over the top and it would be nice for all tournament directors to set rules and enforce them. If the rule is that a team can pick their division because they will all pg- then others know in advance and can choose to join, look elsewhere or pg their team too! It sounds so over the top ridiculous when you think about soccer, hockey or baseball and how strictly they enforce rules- heck in hockey you have to get a release just to try out for another team! Then you have lax and you can choose whatever year you'd like to play. Crazy.

Where does it say that? Starting a new paragraph typically signals a change in topic. "too" funny.

Youth Lacrosse is out of control with no governing body that has any power. Why a simple age base format with cards ( like soccer) isnt done just shows what type of people are involved.. In hotbed areas I hear this constant honor the game concept, what a joke it is. No control at ages in tournaments anywhere. And the letting of kids play down is ridiculous and disgusting. Maryland letting the private school holdbacks play down at youth level is another joke. All these private schools have some type of character education to do the right thing in school. I guess getting an advantage and playing down is one .

The state of youth lacrosse is a joke. Kids and whole teams playing down to look good against younger competition? Sad, really. Why?

Governing body is weak. "Grow the game" is a nice sound bite, but reality is "Grow the kid at any cost and get a scholarship" USLacrosse stands by, whistling next to the hopkins and crabs graveyard of youth lacrosse, also known as Cordish center.

UNC, UVA and Hopkins coaches point fingers at each other, say they hate it, but do nothing. They win nothing either. Karma has a way of catching up with you

What can we, the concerned parents do? Write USLacrosse? Maybe...

What about the administrators of these colleges? They act high and mighty, with noble speeches of character, integrity and honesty when it comes to non-athletes, but their schools are destroying youth lacrosse by recruiting at an age when half the kids haven't gone through puberty. Why can't they do something?

The pursuit of $$ in football and basketball partially justifies recruiting wars, but non-revenue sports, like lacrosse? No $$, drag on athletic department, and giving school a black eye! Just say no to crazy recruiting of 8th graders and make recruiting happen after sophmore year.

I think these administrators and university presidents need to see what a joke their schools are becoming to the large section of non-recruits to make this insanity stop.

This is a perfect example of the Great Lax Age Debate:

http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/fall-club-wrap-up-madlax/30318

First, is IL proud to feature Madlax and publish a visual reference of the player imbalances we all see every tournament? In essence, IL Editing staff is supporting such practices by featuring Madlax in a 'fall club wrap up', while featuring the disparities. The art department did a great job however. The vignette effect is pretty, it really brings out the contrast of the dark leg hair.

Second, Madlax, you couldn't find a better image? In this shot, one could actually superimpose the smaller player in the larger player's body! If you're going to promote yourselves as 'one of the top teams in the country at every graduation year', at least provide a picture that supports the statement. You may have just proven it false.

A reader's perception may very well be Madlax is great beating down the smaller players-and that is a bad way to market yourselves Madlax! Furthermore, when looking at this image, the eye immediately follows the line downward, left to right, to the smaller Thunder player. Credit goes to him, going step for step against a Madlax big gun. Thunder is being promoted, not Madlax.

Worst of all, Madlax did a disservice to one of it's talented athletes by featuring him in this light.

IN CONCLUSION, this image may help perpetuate the age vs grad year debate in the youth lax circuit. But for the purpose of this article...shame on you IL Editors & Madlax! If IL uses an image like this, make sure it's worthwhile and feature it in an exposé to help the safety of the players, the negatives of recruitment, and most importantly, honoring the game.

Agree with your points and will add that Madlax is not even in the top tier of club teams when getting kids recruited. Way down the list on numbers compared to many other clubs. Madlax is the poster child for extracting as much money as possible from gullible and uninformed parents. That is what they do the best - I'll give him that.

The photo looks like it was taken at a father/son event.

Thats funny... but true

Absolutely ridiculous. The Madlax player is at least 3 years older than the Thunder kid. Madlax should be embarrassed. If the only way you can win is to cheat-- what's the point. You obviously don't have any confidence in your coaching or player development. And when they graduate college they will be significantly older than their bosses. They should feel more stupid then than they look now.

ALSO POSTED ON CRABS THREAD:

Crabs commenters are right, take this debate to this thread.

The problem with this debate and the arguments over aged based versus school year based teams with the safety or competitive factors all taken into account is still just that, an argument. US Lacrosse is in no position to tell prep schools what to do, and no body should make rules for prep schools if they want to keep it that same that kids who repeated grades can play school sports in their grade. There isn't anything wrong with that because there are examples of youths held back for health or academic reasons, and I am a parent of a kid in that category. It is unfair to prejudice those kids, so you can't prejudice anyone including kids who do it for sports reasons.

For now the club owners run things and want grade based club teams. I am on the side of US Lacrosse best practices that club lacrosse should be age based to promote safety and equity for the participants, but that is just my argument. There are reasons why ice hockey and soccer are age based for sanctioned non-school competitions, and the winning argument wasn't fairness to make that happen it was safety. The three leading concussion incident rate sports ten years ago were football, soccer and ice hockey. Now it is football, lacrosse and soccer. Soccer has high concussion rates because of head ball collisions and goalies hitting heads on goal posts. Many goalies have started wearing head gear and the sport does debate field player head gear. But the rule to go to age based was safety, get the older versus younger kids issue off the board and do single year age based teams by rule. Ice hockey did this same thing long before soccer for the same reasons, and concussion rates in sanctioned leagues events went down substantially following that.

Lacrosse has two problems. First, growth rate of head injuries and the growth rate of soft tissue injuries at a greater rate of growth than any other sport in the last decade. The first we have to blame on the way the game is played and not the equipment, the second may or may not be a casualty of sports specialization and overuse syndrome injuries. These growth rates are also highest at the youth levels with less physically mature and developed players. Second, we don't know what the growth rate from six months ago is yet because there isn't enough data to make any valid conclusions. The advocates of grade based teams are correct, you can't prove that lacrosse is less safe today because of grade based teams and moreover last year there were age based teams with two year spreads. So the argument that a holdback kid 18 months older is moot since we used to have U-11, U-13 and U-15. Thus grade based teams could not be any less safe than a year ago and according to the birth tables and rules that say you can't reclassify over and over again because players over the age of 19 are not allowed to play high school sports. Just my opinion that those are not BAD arguments, but they are also not GOOD arguments in support of grade based club or recreation lacrosse.

What isn't an opinion but is a fact is that soccer and ice hockey rules bodies realized after pouring over data that single year teams are better than two-year bracket age groups for these youth contact sports and that single year age based teams are best practices. If we can accept soccer and ice hockey as a model -- and some of us again argue against that -- then lacrosse eventually goes that way. Clearly US Lacrosse pushed it and for now the club and recreation leagues pushed back and we have grade based club and recreation lacrosse leagues. For now there isn't injury rate data in yet to denounce the grade based system, and quite possibly with the prior system of two-year spread age based teams it may very well be impossible to have any looking backwards data that says "here, lacrosse is so much more unsafe today over a few years ago"...the best hope for those who want age based is that relative to ice hockey and soccer, that lacrosse is trending higher and higher with head trauma injuries, therefore there is a relative data set to make the argument from. Again just my opinion, but I do see that happening and weakening the grade based system to a point where clubs and recreation leagues will need to go to U-8, U-9, U-10, etc. My argument is that lacrosse is not a large or mature enough sport to come to its own fair bargains, and it also has a very weak governing body in US Lacrosse, so the time it will take to sort this out with safety data versus other comparible head impact trauma risk sports like soccer and ice hockey in the years to come. I don't see this happening anytime soon because the science needs years of data with cases of head injuries to make a different conclusion.

The Madlax player is 2018 with a fall 1999 birthday. He has not been held back and does not play down, but he is very big. I'm not a fan of the grade based system, but calling a team or a particular kid a cheater based on your uninformed assessment of an online photograph is offensive.

I am the just prior poster, see prior post. You can always find big 13 year olds and small 13 year olds, etc. for their age. If we keep it at that the worst of all worlds is this alone which we will need to accept, some kids are big for their age. I agree it is awful and classless to point at a photo of a kid and say "look at that one", especially when it is crying wolf because it isn't a held back kid. Look at this through my eyes. I have a son who repeated an early grade for health reasons. He is nail skinny but over 6'0 as an eighth grader now and the searing and unwelcomed looks we see and parent comments we hear are sickening. If they just put him with kids his birth year, he'd still be a tree next to a kid like in that photo, but at least it would disarm this problem of cheaters, doing this to be recruited, etc. Level it out and make it fair. Soccer parents aren't complaining and their kids are being recruited early by NCAA coaches who are not complaining either. Simple and fair.

We know Madlax and that 2018 team, and they are a terrific team with great players. That said, I do have one salty comment for that program: it is YOU the club owner, coaches and parents who have promoted these kids as 14 year-old public figures. Two Madlax early commits are trending like Justin Bieber now on Twitter from lacrosse recruiting journalists, camps, clinics and events guys. Little kids have Twitter accounts headlining their school and graduation year...and they are 9th graders and these schools are the colleges they won't attend for another 4 years! And now you'd like to jam toothpaste back into the tube and whine that people get on anonymous forums or other internet mediums to aim negatives at a kid? I share the disgust in the commentary onto minors, but give no credibility to the Madlax, Crabs, Sweetlax, etc. "victim nation" when it bites back. The fault is plainly on the club and the parents straight to the ground.

Very true. But in NY , fall 1999, is 2017!

Why wouldn't a program director reject the registration of a team that's practices could jeopardize the safety of unknowing younger players and then hold the director's accountable? There are PLENTY of "elite" or top tier programs to register for a tournament. I certainly wouldn't take on the liability nor could I sleep at night if a kid was seriously injured and I couldhave prevented it.

MD is a fall date cut for school years, so a fall 1999 kid is a 2018. In some other states like NY it is the calendar year cut. Again, the negatives at this kid are unfair but again they were hard earned by the public attention clubs like Madlax and prep schools and the families crave for 14 year olds. You put your kids in a circus ring don't be disappointed when this happens.

glad someone who knows the kid could set the record straight. there are many valid arguments for age vs grade. But making false assumptions and exaggerating to make your points cheapens the argument and comes across as whining.

I respect your points, and the best route is for your club owner to answer to you the customers. Tell him to not sign up for tournaments that will allow grade based youth teams. If you are an elite club, there are always going to be other elite tournaments. The tournament organizers will shift very fast if they lost Sweetlax, LI Express, Team 91, Dukes, top NE clubs WCS from their tournament draws. The unfortunate truth is the loudest cheerleaders are guys like your club owner who support the reclassified schemes and sign you up for it. The consumers need to say no. If they won't for the sake of having their kid on an elite team it doesn't work and we can't complain about it for now.

A fall 1999 birthday is 2017 in ny. So who screams cheater????

What is wrong with you NY parents???? In almost all other states the cut-off for entering Kindergarten is 8/31 (or 9/1) so if you kid is not 5 by 8/31 or 9/1, they are NOT ALLOWED to start K. That does NOT make a player will a fall birthday a CHEATER. No idea why NY has a school cut-off of 12/31. This is the problem. Not the other states... Get a grip

So why then would Team 91 early commit that was born in Oct 1999 be playing as a 2018?

I meant "tournament directors", not program directors. The people running tournaments dictate this practice. Reject registration from programs that misrepresent teams (Edge Lacrosse registering whole teams down. etc)

So what. Most of the country says a fall 1999 is 2018. Maybe you should move.

You have no idea what that kids age is. You just show your ignorance by making the above statement. Does it bother you that you are ignorant or are you just used to it and can't help yourself?

The kid was held back, the Thunder kid that is. Wanted to play for the Crabs.

Mrs. Beckwith check your own rosters before throwing stones at kids

Ty Xanders needs to do a lunatic lacrosse mommies and daddies watch list by 2015, 2016. Between the Deadspin article charaters and this thread a lot of "spots" will be off the board. Seriously, I think Ty Xanders would take this seriously and the college coaches would get a howl out of it.

LOL! Excellent idea. This site is hilarious though. I drop in from time to time to get a good laugh. Great entertainment from a bunch of truly lunatic parents. I think a Watchlist for the loons would be the most interesting article in lacrosse of all time!

3d has a new village idiot. Ryan Danehy tweeted the "reclassify" strategy tactics list. The new one is don't reclassify but verbally commit to doing a PG year. So now kids will verbally commit to prep schools sight unseen to be able to say they are committed to a college as a 14year old. And 3d advises the kids and families to do this ??

I could be wrong but wasn't this tried in the 80's and those that didn't make it to the prep school lost there spot in the college they wanted. Didn't the d2 schools benefit from these tactics in the mid to late 80's could've been sooner.

Isn't this the Edge Lacrosse explanation for registering teams down a year in tournaments? They claim the entire roster intends to PG? Very sad.

Promising to go PG 4-5 years before it is to occur should not be the basis for playing down.

Ryan Danehy
‏@RPDLacrosse Re-classing can be done a few ways. You can:

1. Repeat 8th grade
2. PG

Or

3. Declare yourself a year younger on rosters w/ intent to PG

This is the type of person who should not be involved in youth lacrosse. Why don't we just try working hard and every plays straight up instead of working every angle and gaming the system. This guy is a disgrace.

Why would EXPRESS pull out ? Don't they have lots of large, left back players? ? ?

The sad thing is kids follow these clowns on Twitter and believe they are preaching a gospel on how to be a D1 recruit in lacrosse. I don't get why this sport can't just fly straight and do age based club teams and events. If a 15 year old can't hang with his peers and wants to PG, verbally fake commit to a nameless boarding school for a PG year or verbally commit to being Mormon to go off on a mission for a few years that an be his own can of issues. 15 is young, but of a kid does not have the nads to compete then daddy and club pimp ain't gonna help him overcome it by hiding in the Berkshires for a year.

Ryan Danehy and Ty Xanders should book a room for a lax bro losers reunion in Piscattaway.

Very simple tell director of tournament I will play in tournament but will not play edge, Dukes or laxachusset do to age safety issue. If you put me against them I will forfeit