Age vs Class in Sports

You were lucky that your soccer experience was honest. My son played soccer competitively for many, many years. Not once did he have to prove his age. I just put his birthdate on the forms. He would show up at tournaments with his U-12 academy team and play a team full of grown men who were a foot taller than him and with a 5:00 shadow. It was disgraceful.

Yeah, you know something is up when your opponents are driving themselves to the game!

Seriously though, our soccer program follows the same player card system that others have described. The use of a calendar year rather than say a September 1 - August 31 year has forced some of my son's class mates (those with birthdays between September and January 1) up to the higher grades team, but for the most part, everyone is on an even playing field. I am sure there are those that cheat the system, but I think it more blatant/deliberate now.

One thing soccer has going for it in our area that lacrosse does not, is the number of kids playing. Soccer tournaments can generally fill divisions that supposedly have all teams with kids born within the same calendar year. While lacrosse is growing, tournaments often have to group 2 years together (used to be U7, U9, U11, and U13, but has been changed to 8U, 10U, 12U, and 14U). Having the 2 years together and using graduation year (supposedly coinciding with the age groups) can lead to some mismatches in the level of the participants.
 
One thing soccer has going for it in our area that lacrosse does not, is the number of kids playing. Soccer tournaments can generally fill divisions that supposedly have all teams with kids born within the same calendar year. While lacrosse is growing, tournaments often have to group 2 years together (used to be U7, U9, U11, and U13, but has been changed to 8U, 10U, 12U, and 14U). Having the 2 years together and using graduation year (supposedly coinciding with the age groups) can lead to some mismatches in the level of the participants.

What area of the country are you in? I know that lacrosse is growing in popularity, but it's not taken off quite as much in some parts of the country like it has in the Northeast.
 
BPL, I believe, is for Ohio South teams and I think our club director chooses not to play in the Ohio North state league (for whatever reason). The team is in the Great Lakes Conference (what used to be called the Midwest Regional League), but they didn't have a U15 league this fall, just an "exhibition" league.
When DS played in BPL, we played teams from Columbus I know, and I think further north than that. I remember having a couple games in Columbus. My understanding is there is no fall travel ball starting at U15 in order to allow players to play for their school team. We're also in the Great Lakes Conference and the scheduling meeting for the spring isn't until December. Maybe your team has a bunch of 8th graders and there's no middle school teams. Last year our travel coach put a bunch of "trapped" kids together and went to a tournament.

If your club director chooses not to play in an available league, then he can't complain about not being able to find teams to play. If parents want their kids to play, they should appeal to the club director. But, as I mentioned, there's not much available in the fall for U15 (or U16, U17, U18), at least around here.
 
When DS played in BPL, we played teams from Columbus I know, and I think further north than that. I remember having a couple games in Columbus. My understanding is there is no fall travel ball starting at U15 in order to allow players to play for their school team. We're also in the Great Lakes Conference and the scheduling meeting for the spring isn't until December. Maybe your team has a bunch of 8th graders and there's no middle school teams. Last year our travel coach put a bunch of "trapped" kids together and went to a tournament.

If your club director chooses not to play in an available league, then he can't complain about not being able to find teams to play. If parents want their kids to play, they should appeal to the club director. But, as I mentioned, there's not much available in the fall for U15 (or U16, U17, U18), at least around here.

Middle school soccer isn't really a big thing around here - some schools have teams, but it's not really that common.

For the record - I never said anyone was complaining, just saying that the new age group change created more trapped players than before. It is what it is.
 


I am not a fan of travel sports. The one's I have observed tend to have a lot less oversight and structure than non-travel leagues.

But but but... I can't get 10 world championships in a year, all in 8 team tournaments in places I'd never visit otherwise in a non travel league!!!! I mean errr um... my kids can't.
 
I think the physical difference within a group is much more apparent in boys, especially in swimming. The 13-14 age group had scrawny boys swimming against huge muscular young men. In swimming though, sometimes the scrawny boys won!

Edited, in girls swimming often being more ‘mature’ wasn’t really an advantage.
 


I don't get why people get wound up over the age thing. Sure, you don't want a 10 year old playing against a 15 year old, but if it's two school grades together, I don't have any issue with it. All 3 of my kids play lacrosse, two of them year round (the third splits his time with football). I have seen them bracketed in several different ways...by age group, such as U9, U11, U13. That means kids spend 2 years in each age group. So technically you could have a very young 11 year old playing against a kid who is just turning 13 in U13. But that's just the way it goes, it doesn't bother me. I've also seen it done by grad year so the kids are all fairly close in age. That's usually a club team thing here, where rec leagues are U9, etc...set ups. I've had my kids on both ends of the spectrum. My youngest played goalie for the U13 team when he was 9, and my oldest played U13 when he was already a bit past his 13th b-day. I never had a problem with it either way. At these ages, you're going to get a wide variety in physical size, talent level, etc...no matter how you slice it. My younger sons football team, which was 6th grade only, had kids ranging in size from 75lbs to 195lbs. So as long as it's not outside of "reasonable" such as 10 year old vs 15 year old, I'm OK with it.

I certainly understand and agree with much of what you are saying. Due to the number of players and teams available, the lacrosse tournaments that we have been to often have to group teams together in 2 year graduation intervals. So, it can be quite the mismatch when say a team that includes many true 7th graders along with true 8th graders now has to play a team that consists of all 8th graders, several of which are actually hold backs that are High School age. So, you can end up with match-ups between 12 year olds against 15 year olds. As you know, with the allowance for more physical play in 14U, this mismatch can be a safety issue, let alone competition disparities.

I understand that teams have a choice to go to a tournament, who is on the team, who plays, etc.., but sometimes the choices are limited. And, I certainly agree with what you have said above about how there are always going to be some differences. I just would like to avoid the 20-0 type games which really do not benefit either team. In many cases, that is unavoidable, but I think if there were better checks in place, you would not see that as much. My personal experience is that we do not see as many blow-outs in the age verified soccer tournaments than in the graduating class guided lacrosse tournaments in our region.

This is definitely a first-world issue, as it is our choice to participate. But, it is like saying that something at Disney World could be better - we enjoy going and are lucky that we can, but things at Disney could be improved!
 
What area of the country are you in? I know that lacrosse is growing in popularity, but it's not taken off quite as much in some parts of the country like it has in the Northeast.

I live in the mid-Atlantic, where it has always been pretty big in pockets (DC suburbs, Baltimore, Philly, etc..), but it is really spreading throughout the states of VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, pockets of the Mid-West and out West. I read somewhere that it is one of the few sports that is growing in youth participation and it may even be the #1 growing sport (don't quote me on that).
 
We've had teams in our own town league that have cheated and sent older kids to a tournament meant for younger ones. I was pretty active on the board but left because of the amount of respectable adults who either tolerated it or were too afraid to confront it. Three of our own kids are fall kids and we've never felt "trapped". If they lose to a superior team, they likely got a lot more out of it than a practice. My oldest DD was younger than most of her premier team and I think she came out a stronger player for it. Honestly, the cheating attitude comes from people who think winning is the point of youth sports rather than learning.

As for evening the playing field, I think soccer does NOTHING to do that, at least not in my small town that is totally run by volunteers who tend to stack teams in the first place. Our town league basically becomes a league of travel teams once the kids are in 3rd grade - another thing I couldn't tolerate because I believe growing the rec league is the healthiest option long term. But many parents are looking out for their kid and not the league. Anyhow...if a team is short players, they rarely go to a rec player or pull their subs off the bench. Instead they recruit players from other towns to play for a tournament or even a league championship. It is beyond ridiculous as far as I'm concerned and wish US Soccer would deal with that. What ends up happening is one particular team stays together until middle school then 1/3 of the team quits and tries another sport. Now the team doesn't even have a rec league to choose from and the team dies out and kids go to premier teams.

On the national level, Hope Solo spoke the truth when she said soccer was becoming rich kids sport. Premier leagues are popping up left and right, to be considered for many college teams you have to do ID camps and college showcases (which are a scam if you ask me), and there's a huge focus on ODP which requires time and money. Inner city parents will never afford that and at some point, I'd imagine MOST parents stop being able to afford it. The uneven field is already VERY evident at the high school level. In my daughter's league, less than half the games were competitive. Teams from lower income schools didn't stand a chance. I find that very sad because I've seen some super talented kids kicking around a soccer ball for fun in a park.
 
As for evening the playing field, I think soccer does NOTHING to do that, at least not in my small town that is totally run by volunteers who tend to stack teams in the first place. Our town league basically becomes a league of travel teams once the kids are in 3rd grade - another thing I couldn't tolerate because I believe growing the rec league is the healthiest option long term. But many parents are looking out for their kid and not the league. Anyhow...if a team is short players, they rarely go to a rec player or pull their subs off the bench. Instead they recruit players from other towns to play for a tournament or even a league championships. It is beyond ridiculous as far as I'm concerned and wish US Soccer would deal with that. What ends up happening is one particular team stays together until middle school then 1/3 of the team quits and tries another sport. Now the team doesn't even have a rec league to choose from and the team dies out and kids go to premier teams.
What do you want USYS to do? This sounds like a club specific problem, not a soccer problem.
There is usually a big quality difference between a rec and select player. It makes sense to me to go out of the county/city to find someone with the skill level that matches.

I do like what my home town club does... they have two levels, rec & select. Select starts at U8. For rec, the volunteer coaches (maximum of two per team) obviously have their kids on the team. The rest are randomly assigned. I don't believe exceptions are made (ie: Suzy "needs" to play on Claire's team because they're neighbors doesn't hold water). The number of rec teams drop as they get older (more kids on a team and less kids participating), so the neighboring counties usually get together to form a small league. Select is open tryouts every year (everyone makes the U8 & U9 select teams), and sometimes includes kids from neighboring (or not so neighboring) counties. Unfortunately, the quality usually isn't there to support teams much past U13 (first year of 11v11). Most of the better players have moved to larger clubs around that time.

On the national level, Hope Solo spoke the truth when she said soccer was becoming rich kids sport. Premier leagues are popping up left and right, to be considered for many college teams you have to do ID camps and college showcases (which are a scam if you ask me), and there's a huge focus on ODP which requires time and money. Inner city parents will never afford that and at some point, I'd imagine MOST parents stop being able to afford it. The uneven field is already VERY evident at the high school level. In my daughter's league, less than half the games were competitive. Teams from lower income schools didn't stand a chance. I find that very sad because I've seen some super talented kids kicking around a soccer ball for fun in a park.
The bolded is funny, because if you read soccer centric message boards, you see how ODP isn't the level it used to be. Everything is about DA and ECNL now.
 
I certainly understand and agree with much of what you are saying. Due to the number of players and teams available, the lacrosse tournaments that we have been to often have to group teams together in 2 year graduation intervals. So, it can be quite the mismatch when say a team that includes many true 7th graders along with true 8th graders now has to play a team that consists of all 8th graders, several of which are actually hold backs that are High School age. So, you can end up with match-ups between 12 year olds against 15 year olds. As you know, with the allowance for more physical play in 14U, this mismatch can be a safety issue, let alone competition disparities.

I understand that teams have a choice to go to a tournament, who is on the team, who plays, etc.., but sometimes the choices are limited. And, I certainly agree with what you have said above about how there are always going to be some differences. I just would like to avoid the 20-0 type games which really do not benefit either team. In many cases, that is unavoidable, but I think if there were better checks in place, you would not see that as much. My personal experience is that we do not see as many blow-outs in the age verified soccer tournaments than in the graduating class guided lacrosse tournaments in our region.

This is definitely a first-world issue, as it is our choice to participate. But, it is like saying that something at Disney World could be better - we enjoy going and are lucky that we can, but things at Disney could be improved!

Yeah, I hear you and don't completely disagree. We've been on both ends of that 20-0 game, and with DS11 being a goalie, a very emotional one at that, it's been a challenge at times. However, I guess I just don't see it as a really big deal when it does happen, or that much of a safety issue. To me, the big deal on a 20-0 game is that it is just morally deflating to the losing team and can take away the joy of the game. That part stinks. You can get those types of games even with kids the same age group, especially in a sport like lacrosse. It's a growing sport, so you'll have kids who have been playing for years go against a new team.

Sometimes what makes it hard is how rec leagues, or even club teams, divide up their teams. Some truly mix it up where each team has top level players, brand new players, less skilled players and varying age player. Then some do an "A" and "B" team. Our school tries to mix it up for rec league. Sometimes they'll go against another school that does A and B teams. Well, the A team is all kids at the upper end of the age bracket, upper end of the talent pool, who have been playing together 10 months a year for 6 years. They absolutely smoke our mixed team. It stinks, but it doesn't bother me all that much. The only thing I'd like to see different is have consistency...either everyone does mixed teams or everyone does A/B teams. For the safety issue, kids can be varying sizes at these ages. Like I said, football is a prime example. The kids are all pretty much the same age, but the size difference can be massive. You just have to deal with it. Your 80lb son may have to try to tackle a 140lb running back coming straight at him. Same principal in lacrosse. On the subject of lacrosse, I'll add that the girls game drives me absolutely bonkers. They face the same challenges with age and varying skill sets, but the rules are SO different. Defense is all but not allowed and they can barely touch each other. I wish they'd put helmets on the girls, put pads on them and let them play. I'm not saying it should turn into some gladiator death match, but let them be more physical and just play.

We live in the Atlanta suburbs and lacrosse is growing by leaps and bounds here. We've only been here 4.5 years, but locals have told us that the sport was nearly non-existent here a decade ago. Even in our short time here, it's amazing how many kids are playing. DD11 has about 40-45 girls in the U13 rec league program. When we've tried out for club teams the attendance is amazing...so many kids. New teams are popping up all the time.
 
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I understand that teams have a choice to go to a tournament, who is on the team, who plays, etc.., but sometimes the choices are limited. And, I certainly agree with what you have said above about how there are always going to be some differences. I just would like to avoid the 20-0 type games which really do not benefit either team. In many cases, that is unavoidable, but I think if there were better checks in place, you would not see that as much. My personal experience is that we do not see as many blow-outs in the age verified soccer tournaments than in the graduating class guided lacrosse tournaments in our region.

I have no experience with lacrosse, so I don't know if this applies, but as far as soccer goes, nearly every tournament we do to have various brackets of differing skill levels, so to try to avoid the blowouts you're talking about. Teams can apply to a specific bracket and the tournament officials often will go through a team's history to make sure that a team is not trying to 'sandbag' and register to a lower bracket just to win the tourney. One tournament we went to said they take pride in creating brackets where no team wins or loses by more than 3 goals.
 
I have no experience with lacrosse, so I don't know if this applies, but as far as soccer goes, nearly every tournament we do to have various brackets of differing skill levels, so to try to avoid the blowouts you're talking about. Teams can apply to a specific bracket and the tournament officials often will go through a team's history to make sure that a team is not trying to 'sandbag' and register to a lower bracket just to win the tourney. One tournament we went to said they take pride in creating brackets where no team wins or loses by more than 3 goals.
One thing I wish USYS would do is forbid tournament brackets that would potentially require a team to play three games in one day (I see this a lot if there are 5 teams in a bracket).
 
What do you want USYS to do? This sounds like a club specific problem, not a soccer problem.
There is usually a big quality difference between a rec and select player. It makes sense to me to go out of the county/city to find someone with the skill level that matches.

I do like what my home town club does... they have two levels, rec & select. Select starts at U8. For rec, the volunteer coaches (maximum of two per team) obviously have their kids on the team. The rest are randomly assigned. I don't believe exceptions are made (ie: Suzy "needs" to play on Claire's team because they're neighbors doesn't hold water). The number of rec teams drop as they get older (more kids on a team and less kids participating), so the neighboring counties usually get together to form a small league. Select is open tryouts every year (everyone makes the U8 & U9 select teams), and sometimes includes kids from neighboring (or not so neighboring) counties. Unfortunately, the quality usually isn't there to support teams much past U13 (first year of 11v11). Most of the better players have moved to larger clubs around that time.

Sounds like you are in a bigger town (and not making exceptions is HUGE). I think large towns, cities or anyone who has a paid parks and rec department to oversee the leagues is a good thing. My hometown softball league is extremely strong because all these years, it was run by a person who didn't have kids who played softball. That would probably be seen as creepy these days, but this man just loved the game and looked out for the league and not just a few kids. The program has a huge number of participants and the levels are vast.

The bolded is funny, because if you read soccer centric message boards, you see how ODP isn't the level it used to be. Everything is about DA and ECNL now.

I'll answer them in paragraph order:

I think USYS should encourage/require structure similar to Little League (at least the Little League of my youth). There's no reason to jump to travel so early. Honestly, travel and clubs are made for parents who think their kids are more skilled than others. They can also stop sanctioning tournaments or teams for cheating.

Sounds like you are in a bigger town (and not making exceptions is HUGE). I think large towns, cities or anyone who has a paid parks and rec department to oversee the leagues is a good thing. My hometown softball league is extremely strong because all these years, it was run by a person who didn't have kids who played softball. That would probably be seen as creepy these days, but this man just loved the game and looked out for the league and not just a few kids. The program has a huge number of participants and the levels are vast.

And finally, - I guess I'm dating myself on the ODP thing - don't get sucked into these soccer message boards. They are just a hot mess of awful people who are WAY to into their kids soccer. Any level is all about money and they get watered down because they'll take money over quality. What you'll be amused by (as we were) is how many people put a buttload of money and travel into their daughter's soccer like a few on my daughter's high school team, constantly dropped the international tournaments they'd be doing only for the kids to end up as a sub at a D3 school. Not knocking D3, but you'd think they were going full ride with everything they put into it.
 
I think USYS should encourage/require structure similar to Little League (at least the Little League of my youth). There's no reason to jump to travel so early. Honestly, travel and clubs are made for parents who think their kids are more skilled than others. They can also stop sanctioning tournaments or teams for cheating.
There are travel T-Ball tournaments. Please don't make it sound like baseball doesn't have the same problem. LL (as I understand it) is organized only for those teams who want to try to qualify for the LLWS. There are LOTS of baseball travel teams and tournaments. And yes, travel teams are for kids (and their parents) who are more skilled than others. Kids will benefit more by playing with and against kids with comparable skill level.

Sounds like you are in a bigger town (and not making exceptions is HUGE). I think large towns, cities or anyone who has a paid parks and rec department to oversee the leagues is a good thing. My hometown softball league is extremely strong because all these years, it was run by a person who didn't have kids who played softball. That would probably be seen as creepy these days, but this man just loved the game and looked out for the league and not just a few kids. The program has a huge number of participants and the levels are vast.
Not really. My home town is actually relatively small. The county has 91K residents according to the 2017 census. DD plays for the home town team, DS plays for the nearby larger club. He played for the home team until his team broke up. And it's strange that you're advocating for people with no kids to be in charge, when that's what happens when you join a travel club.

And finally, - I guess I'm dating myself on the ODP thing - don't get sucked into these soccer message boards. They are just a hot mess of awful people who are WAY to into their kids soccer. Any level is all about money and they get watered down because they'll take money over quality. What you'll be amused by (as we were) is how many people put a buttload of money and travel into their daughter's soccer like a few on my daughter's high school team, constantly dropped the international tournaments they'd be doing only for the kids to end up as a sub at a D3 school. Not knocking D3, but you'd think they were going full ride with everything they put into it.
Sort of like this board is (can be) a hot mess of people who are WAY too into Disney? ;)

DA clubs don't allow their kids to play in HS or ODP. DA is generally recognized as "the best of the best", so if they take the top kids, what's left for ODP or HS?

Last but not least, if you only see sports as process to get kids into college, you're doing it wrong. You should have your kids participate because they LIKE to, ENJOY it, and LEARN from it. That can be done at the lowest rec level or the highest travel level. DS has been playing travel soccer for 7 (or 8?) years now. He did an international trip in 2017 after being picked out of a camp. He's done ODP. His ODP team this year is going to Germany. We're going to a college showcase this weekend and will do two more before the season is over. Do I think he's entitled to a scholarship? No. There's a chance he decides he wants to give up soccer. Do I hope he gets a scholarship? Sure. And I don't care if it's D1, D2, D3, or NAIA. Do I think he's a failure or all these years are a waste if he doesn't? Absolutely not. We do it because he likes it (same with DD).
 
One thing I wish USYS would do is forbid tournament brackets that would potentially require a team to play three games in one day (I see this a lot if there are 5 teams in a bracket).

Yeah, that can be rough - we had one tournament where we had to do that. 2 games on Saturday, then everyone was seeded accordingly. Only top seeded team got a bye (7 team bracket), then 2 played 7, 3 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5, followed by semis and finals. Made for a long day (thankfully, we did win).
 
There are travel T-Ball tournaments. Please don't make it sound like baseball doesn't have the same problem. LL (as I understand it) is organized only for those teams who want to try to qualify for the LLWS. There are LOTS of baseball travel teams and tournaments. And yes, travel teams are for kids (and their parents) who are more skilled than others. Kids will benefit more by playing with and against kids with comparable skill level.

Not really. My home town is actually relatively small. The county has 91K residents according to the 2017 census. DD plays for the home town team, DS plays for the nearby larger club. He played for the home team until his team broke up. And it's strange that you're advocating for people with no kids to be in charge, when that's what happens when you join a travel club.

Sort of like this board is (can be) a hot mess of people who are WAY too into Disney? ;)

DA clubs don't allow their kids to play in HS or ODP. DA is generally recognized as "the best of the best", so if they take the top kids, what's left for ODP or HS?

Last but not least, if you only see sports as process to get kids into college, you're doing it wrong. You should have your kids participate because they LIKE to, ENJOY it, and LEARN from it. That can be done at the lowest rec level or the highest travel level. DS has been playing travel soccer for 7 (or 8?) years now. He did an international trip in 2017 after being picked out of a camp. He's done ODP. His ODP team this year is going to Germany. We're going to a college showcase this weekend and will do two more before the season is over. Do I think he's entitled to a scholarship? No. There's a chance he decides he wants to give up soccer. Do I hope he gets a scholarship? Sure. And I don't care if it's D1, D2, D3, or NAIA. Do I think he's a failure or all these years are a waste if he doesn't? Absolutely not. We do it because he likes it (same with DD).

I did mention the Little League I remember. Believe me, I'm aware most sports have become crazy gold mines. My own opinion is that it's silly to not let your kids play in high school. When ODP made that change, a lot of parents whose kids had done that program with success said they were happy their kids didn't have to forego high school soccer. Alexi Lalas spoke about why high school sports were important to him and it was pretty interesting.

We had our kids do sports for the process, not a scholarship. DH and I were both athletes in the days of "If you're good enough, they'll find you". Ironically, DH's sport (football) is one of the only college sports (if not only) that still works that way. We made sure our kids were doing it for the love it, but found difficult the amount of delusion among players and parents - usually highly educated, upper middle class ones, somehow. During her college selection process, we really had to drill into her choosing a school for its academics and not because she could make that team.
 
Yeah, that can be rough - we had one tournament where we had to do that. 2 games on Saturday, then everyone was seeded accordingly. Only top seeded team got a bye (7 team bracket), then 2 played 7, 3 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5, followed by semis and finals. Made for a long day (thankfully, we did win).
Yea, 7 is rough also. You could do it with a group of four (plays normal two on Saturday, #3 on Sunday and group winner advances), and a group of three (plays normal two on Saturday, group winner advances to play A winner on Sunday, second and third place play each other again on Sunday for their guaranteed third game).
 
I did mention the Little League I remember. Believe me, I'm aware most sports have become crazy gold mines. My own opinion is that it's silly to not let your kids play in high school. When ODP made that change, a lot of parents whose kids had done that program with success said they were happy their kids didn't have to forego high school soccer. Alexi Lalas spoke about why high school sports were important to him and it was pretty interesting.

The problem that US Soccer faces is that the HS soccer system (and, in some ways, college soccer) is a crappy way to build a national program.

While my older son played HS soccer and my younger son is also planning on playing, the fact is that HS soccer, with a few exceptions, is crappy soccer. Add that in with the fact that HS soccer teams are only together for 3 months out of the year and it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to build any continuity with the team and their playing style.

DA, on the other hand, allows a high level player to train with the same roster for 11 months a year and play against competition that is similar in ability as well as playing style. That's why pretty much all of the National Team players generally come from that system (assuming, like Pulisic, Weah, etc., they're not already in Europe by the time they're 16).

I'm not saying that DA (or ODP, etc.) is the right move for most players, but from a national perspective, it's a good thing to identify those players that should be playing nationally and keep them together in the hopes that future years don't include US teams not playing in the Olympics or World Cup.
 

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