Age Band Change (again)?

[whatithink]

My son and I have been watching a series of U12 boys games from Utah premier and gold for kicks. There's one team that he really loves called Wasatch. The one thing you see time and time again on the dominant teams is that they are taller. Taller= bigger physical presence and greater leg span. It's not just maturity....the difference in growth over just 1 year at that age can amount to quite a few inches.

That's what I meant by my biological reference, i.e. they hit puberty sooner and get bigger, faster & stronger. Both my kids are late bloomers, so she's the smallest on her roster of 18 bar one kid - she's prob 9 inches shorter & 30+ pounds lighter than the biggest player. My son has been giving up, at the extremes 10+ inches and 50+ pounds in his head to heads. They will both catch up and it will level out.

Bigger, faster & stronger doesn't mean better obv. but it does give an advantage and way too many coaches will go for it first every time.

 

[Grace T.]

Bigger, faster & stronger doesn't mean better obv. but it does give an advantage and way too many coaches will go for it first every time.

Particularly when they are younger since (and quite obvious even at the supposedly "high level" of these Utah games) at the younger ages it's less about soccer=chess, and more about whose going to sneak one past the defensive line and then win the footrace and/or bang one in from far on a DFK and/or top of the 18. For coaches who are concerned largely with the short term results, it makes rationale sense.

 

[Woobie06]

Is moving it back a big deal? It was probably a mistake in the first place...kids can play with their school friends if they fall in that late birthday range or play with their age year. Whatever works for the kid and their journey. I could care less about clubs scheming to pull players “down”...that stuff is usually obvious and would make me question if that was the right place for the kid.

Our DD is a Nov Bday (‘06) and when she started playing she went out for the local club team. We did not know she was playing “up”...she was just playing on the youngest available team and played on the same team through the age change...zero effect for her as it was all she knew, but we know a ton of kids who were and it was not fun for them. Now as she is getting older there are kids in her class who are ‘07’s and she has said it would be fun to play with classmates. I agree with one of the posters who mentioned the social side of things. It matters. Next year she will be in 8th, and the rest of her old team in 9th all breaking for HS for ECNL and she would have been “stranded”. She changed teams recently due to this. Having the option to move down for those kids is not a bad thing. Just gives a subset of kids an option if they want or need it. Nothing wrong with that in IMHO.

Our other DD plays club Volleyball and they have the Sept 1 cut-off...works great. Kids that play-up based on ability do, those that fit better with their school year do that. You don’t hear a peep about it.

Never going to make everyone happy, but providing more choices and options are not a bad thing. The resistance is the fear that some people’s kid may be pushed out, which is the same thing some of the late BDay kids deal with as well playing against some kids who are 9 and 10 months older. In some cases with the ulittles and youngers that makes a difference. Now you have pilots with bio-banding and things like that to try and match maturity, ability, size, etc. to even things out. More options never hurt anyone.

 

[Dirtnap]

I personally hope they change it back. Our team decided to stick together when the birth year change happened. About half the team has been playing "up" for a few years now.

I know my daughter would, she missed being a 07 by a month and most of her friends are 07's

 

[timbuck]

When I first saw this posted here, I thought “no flipping way they would even consider moving it back”.
But now I’m seeing this “rumor” all over Twitter and other forums.
If they do roll it back, do they do some sort of “grandfather” clause to allow existing teams some time to transition (or age out). That was one of the biggest complaints when they rolled out “birth year”.

 

[newwavedave]

When I first saw this posted here, I thought “no flipping way they would even consider moving it back”.
But now I’m seeing this “rumor” all over Twitter and other forums.
If they do roll it back, do they do some sort of “grandfather” clause to allow existing teams some time to transition (or age out). That was one of the biggest complaints when they rolled out “birth year”.

Start at u12 and go back to school age. My poor dd has been through enough already and so have I. Age change 2016, DA 2017 started the pay per play league, no HS Soccer allowed for poor kids in public school but if you're dad is rich and sits on the board you get waiver. Why do these asshole docs (not all) tell you in order to be "elite" you need to "pay so you can play" and pay for 10 months out of year, 4 days a week and travel all across the country spending hard earn money in showcases? They tell you, you have to devote all your life at 12 years old in one sport? Come on folks, seriously. This is the biggest money scam ever. Hogwash!!!!!!

 

[espola]

Start at u12 and go back to school age. My poor dd has been through enough already and so have I. Age change 2016, DA 2017 started the pay per play league, no HS Soccer allowed for poor kids in public school but if you're dad is rich and sits on the board you get waiver. Why do these asshole docs (not all) tell you in order to be "elite" you need to "pay so you can play" and pay for 10 months out of year, 4 days a week and travel all across the country spending hard earn money in showcases? They tell you, you have to devote all your life at 12 years old in one sport? Come on folks, seriously. This is the biggest money scam ever. Hogwash!!!!!!

I was trying to figure out how to reply to this coherently, and then I saw it is from nwd. Reader beware.

 

[Grace T.]

Here's an example of what I was saying. My son and I were watching this premier level game yesterday from Utah for U12. You'll see the boys are mostly all very tall and big for 11/12 year olds. I'll leave it to you guys to judge the quality of the soccer from the video.

 

[watfly]

Here's an example of what I was saying. My son and I were watching this premier level game yesterday from Utah for U12. You'll see the boys are mostly all very tall and big for 11/12 year olds. I'll leave it to you guys to judge the quality of the soccer from the video.

On average those kids are fairly big. If you want to see some really big 11-12 year olds come to a DA showcase. Some are just big kids, but some have the body tone and definition of an adult. It can literally look like men against boys.

 

[timbuck]

Do we need to do what they did for tackle football when I was growing up?
From 5th through 8th grade, they had weight divisions.
Lightweight
Middleweight
Heavyweight

It was ideal because everyone in a group was about the same size. So you didn't have the big kid always playing offensive line or the skinny kid playing receiver. Gave kids a chance to play a few positions before getting pigeonholed based on their body type.

 

[jpeter]

Do we need to do what they did for tackle football when I was growing up?
From 5th through 8th grade, they had weight divisions.
Lightweight
Middleweight
Heavyweight

It was ideal because everyone in a group was about the same size. So you didn't have the big kid always playing offensive line or the skinny kid playing receiver. Gave kids a chance to play a few positions before getting pigeonholed based on their body type.

Weight classes in wrestling & boxing but that's the first I heard about them for middle school football. Age or grade grouped around here but multiples normally.

Soccer is sometime a bit of wrestling but that would be funny to have a lightweight team, mid weights, and our feature today the heavys. Let's get ready to rumble...

 

[espola]

Weight classes in wrestling & boxing but that's the first I heard about them for middle school football. Age or grade grouped around here but multiples normally.

Soccer is sometime a bit of wrestling but that would be funny to have a lightweight team, mid weights, and our feature today the heavys. Let's get ready to rumble...

When they were younger, my kids participated in tennis tournaments where age groups were set effective the day the tournament started.

 

[dad4]

When they were younger, my kids participated in tennis tournaments where age groups were set effective the day the tournament started.

Works fine for individual sports. Tougher for a team passing sport like soccer.

Creating a new mix of kids 3 times per year seems like it would be awful for building friendships.

Might be able to declare a max age, and max average age. Kids playing up would have to be excluded from the average, or some idiot coach would have kids play up just to offset all his olders.

 

[Bri’s-DAD]

This would be a good thing imo

 

[Lambchop]

I don't see this change happening, it'll stay as is.

Someone noted that in the UK they don't do this, but that's incorrect. England made the change to year groups for FA groupings around the same time or just before the US. That said, there is a huge schools based soccer system in the UK and that remains grade based.

From my perspective my kids are Sep & Nov, so both were impacted by this.

On my son's team (Nov) they were about 50-50, older (Aug-Dec) vs younger (Jan-Jun) and the backbone of the team were the olders. They were also a top team in the state. Roll on from the change and all bar 2 of the "olders" have left soccer and all the "youngers" play DA or ECNL. They were not better players than their old teams mates, but they were dominant vs the "olders" on the year below.

On my daughter's team (Sep), they were about 20-80, older (Aug-Dec) vs younger (Jan-Jun) which was a strange mix. They were an avg team in the state. The "youngers" are now probably the top team in the state and only my kid is left on the "olders" team. That "older" team is made up of 90-10 with 90% of the players being Jan-Jul.

One thing I notice (I look as my kids are on the younger side now) when looking at elite rosters (DA) - on the girls side in particular, the older kids dominate. Its a biological and maturity (a grade ahead) advantage. On the bright side, if my daughter can continue to hang, she will have a huge advantage over her peer group if she wants to play college, as the number of kids from her grade year playing elite soccer in the Aug-Dec months will be far fewer than the number in the Jan-Jul months - and she will be playing a year "up" relative to her graduating year.

That said, I've never agreed with the change given it's not designed to service or support the kids in soccer. It doesn't surprise me that numbers have dropped.

So many other reasons why the number of players has dropped and it has nothing to do with the age change or pay to play. Think about it, you have little children coming into soccer eager and willing to learn and play. What is it that destroys their love of the game? Spend some time seriously thinking about it. The answer is too controversial for the forum. Maybe some day a book will be written.

 

[seuss]

Why would new soccer participation not go down when our men’s national team failed to make it into the World Cup last time?
We literally have ZERO men’s national team players with mainstream recognition.
I might ask why any boy born in this culture would even think of the sport going forward?

Just about 20 years ago I was debating with a British guy about how close we were to taking over in soccer. I must have came across as the biggest dunce in the company with that.

 

[Lambchop]

Works fine for individual sports. Tougher for a team passing sport like soccer.

Creating a new mix of kids 3 times per year seems like it would be awful for building friendships.

Might be able to declare a max age, and max average age. Kids playing up would have to be excluded from the average, or some idiot coach would have kids play up just to offset all his olders.

Don't worry about "playing with school friends". The friends will be friends at their home school in spite of what sport they play. DD DA team has 17 players from "15" different high schools! They are all friends in spite of the different schools and distance between them. Only two players attend the same high school. (five private schools in the mix)

 

[dad4]

Don't worry about "playing with school friends". The friends will be friends at their home school in spite of what sport they play. DD DA team has 17 players from "15" different high schools! They are all friends in spite of the different schools and distance between them. Only two players attend the same high school. (five private schools in the mix)

I was talking about team friends. Even in Ulittle, we have almost no one from the same school. But none of them want the team to get scrambled every time birthdays roll around.

 

[newwavedave]

So many other reasons why the number of players has dropped and it has nothing to do with the age change or pay to play. Think about it, you have little children coming into soccer eager and willing to learn and play. What is it that destroys their love of the game? Spend some time seriously thinking about it. The answer is too controversial for the forum. Maybe some day a book will be written.

I really interested in the answer. Give it up, please..... I will give you my thoughts after you give us your answer.
P.S. I also have some stories to add to the book if you ever want to write one A reality show is more like it. TB said 100% I could roll the cameras. He knows, as do other coaches, how lame and stupid all this is. He also knows why and how all this has happened. Dance moms, please...….. How about "Soccer Dads." You need honest people like Luis and EJ to let their mouths fly. Lawyer type rich dads will either recruit us or try and shut us up. Luis's kid is way ahead of the curve at this age. My dd at U10 had mental toughness, blazing speed, goal scoring abilities (back then) and competitive drive that also took her above other players and everyone was pissed that we left Legends. I told Luis it will all even out around U15. The hope and prayer is your dd still loves the game even though some adults tried to ruin it for her.

 

[Canyon90]

I really interested in the answer. Give it up, please..... I will give you my thoughts after you give us your answer.
P.S. I also have some stories to add to the book if you ever want to write one A reality show is more like it. TB said 100% I could roll the cameras. He knows, as do other coaches, how lame and stupid all this is. He also knows why and how all this has happened. Dance moms, please...….. How about "Soccer Dads." You need honest people like Luis and EJ to let their mouths fly. Lawyer type rich dads will either recruit us or try and shut us up. Luis's kid is way ahead of the curve at this age. My dd at U10 had mental toughness, blazing speed, goal scoring abilities (back then) and competitive drive that also took her above other players and everyone was pissed that we left Legends. I told Luis it will all even out around U15. The hope and prayer is your dd still loves the game even though some adults tried to ruin it for her.

LMAO @ "everyone was pissed that we left Legends"

Don't you mean Blues, I mean Surf, wait no it was Blues, or maybe you're talking about next season when you leave Strikers!?

PS... I thought you "changed your ways & learned your lesson" yet you keep posting about how amazing of a soccer dad you were at U10.

Too funny brah - keep it up EJ, I mean Justus, wait it's NewWaveDave, wow - not only a club-hopper but a forum name-hopper too!