Age Band Change (again)?

[Kante]

(steps onto soapbox)

an idea.

Any comments on these kind of threads should be prefaced w/ your kid's(s') dob.

And any comments that don't start w/ kid's(s') should be dq'ed.

(where you stand depends on where you sit...)
________

oldest is eom nov; youngest is early july.

older is the much better athlete and also benefitted from RAE advantage before the switch to CY. however, he is also a relative late bloomer, so has the double whammy, late dob and late developer (my wife's brother - an average height guy - was still growing in college). he's struggled at times but has learned to cope and likely is athletic enough/good enough at soccer that ultimately he will benefit from being forced to play with kids who are essentially a year older. As opposed to being driven out of the sport.

on the other hand, younger benefitted enormously from switch to CY. also late developer, and was on receiving end of RAE disadvantage, based on school year dob cut-off. likely would not still be playing soccer at competitive level w/o CY switch. however, will be bigger than his older brother and seems to be starting to come around athletically and as a soccer player, so will see.

thus, am ambivalent about a switch back to school year.

but do know that for which ever set of players that get the smelly end of the stick for dob cut-off, whether it's Oct thru Dec or July thru Aug, there needs to be something in place to make sure these kids have an opportunity to develop.

seems obvious and not sure why this isn't a much much bigger topic w/ much more support.

USSDA used to have at least some programs for younger dob/late developers - i.e. a ynt futures camp, used to call up younger dobs to specific segment of the training centers, used to specifically scout for high potential younger dob/late developers - but all this went away in 2018-19 due to budget cuts (meanwhile, USSF is spending an unanticipated $9m defending themselves from lawsuits - awesome).

The only USSDA item remaining that benefits younger dob/late developers is the rule allowing up to two younger dob/late developer players to play down at u14 and u15.

But, from eyeballing game reports, only about 1/4 of the clubs do this, and USSDA probably should be doing a lot more to promote and normalize this, rather than having it be an exception w/ a stigma attached. (and btw, this rule doesn't cost USSF $, which is likely why it continues).

Here's a decent look at some of what Europe is doing in this area - http://uefa.to/2exNCr5; pages 17 - 23 (thanks Carlitos10!)

On the boys' side, simply put, it's a fact that significant dob developmental advantages exist up thru u17.

so, maybe, instead of folks lobbying for whatever dob cut-off date benefits their kid, just maybe focus all that energy on making sure that programs are in place to support all the kids.

(i.e. and maybe also consider that your kid isn't actually better, maybe he's just older... for now...)

(quickly ducks off soapbox to avoid incoming shrapnel...)

 

[newwavedave]

I am disagreeing with your assertion that conforming with the FIFA age brackets (I heard the UK does not, but may be wrong) has a large positive effect on US competitiveness in soccer. Youth soccer participation is no longer growing in the US. We should be doing everything we can to increase the popularity of youth soccer. In California, the current cutoff date for school is September 1. Age year soccer brackets force 1/3 of California children to play with children different grade. The time to make new soccer players is in elementary school. and the US could use more soccer players.

Awesome!!!!!!!!! Winner!!!!!!!!!

 

[younothat]

School year, calendar year is all noise IMO. You can group them anyway you want don't think it will make a difference for youth soccer in the US. One doesn't benefit the other expect when your playing other teams in tournaments or competition.

Playing with friends is nice but it can run's it course pretty quick initially but sometimes can regroup later. Our son & daughter always wanted to play with as many of his friends as they could when there where younger.

Son Played on his own neighborhood team at 6 indoor, daughter was older so played on mixed teams since there was not enough young girls around to make teams in the neighborhood.

Both where asked to tryout for various clubs teams after playing indoor for a year, son turned them down first year but daughter went for it although only one of her friends got offered a spot on the 1st ream with her. She wasn't sure but I encouraged her to attend some training before she made the decision, she really liked the coach and was hooked after they won the 1st tournament, made lots of new friends, was happy as a lark. She continued to play with friends on the weekends, futsal, or whenever she got the chance. would be years before some of her old friends eventually played HS with her again but did have have some club player who where consistent with her even when they changed clubs.

Son continued only playing with his neighborhood school based team until he was in 2nd grade or so when club coaches really started to recruit more. After they finished finalist in U9 (playing up) in a local club tournament playing with colored t shirts every player was recruited. My Son thought no way, look we are just as good or better and we don't even have a coach, why should we change now. Later on he was induced to some US mens soccer players at a tournament they where playing and eventually started to train with a coach they had recommend. He was asked to play on his U9 team but none of his buddies made it when the tryouts game and he didn't understand why or really wanted to at first. Guest playing on grass for the first time he was hooked and loved it even though he was the smallest player by far, missed his friends so they continued playing futsal for another couple years together and occasionally the odd tournament. In the end just like his sister he made a bunch of new friends, stayed on touch, and out of his original team almost of them are have been offered college scholarship so far, crazy to think that some of same 6 yrs olds will be playing at the same Pac10 schools again after all these years, even if they only played a year or two together later when the club stars aligned.

 

[newwavedave]

(steps onto soapbox)

an idea.

Any comments on these kind of threads should be prefaced w/ your kid's(s') dob.

And any comments that don't start w/ kid's(s') should be dq'ed.

(where you stand depends on where you sit...)
________

oldest is eom nov; youngest is early july.

older is the much better athlete and also benefitted from RAE advantage before the switch to CY. however, he is also a relative late bloomer, so has the double whammy, late dob and late developer (my wife's brother - an average height guy - was still growing in college). he's struggled at times but has learned to cope and likely is athletic enough/good enough at soccer that ultimately he will benefit from being forced to play with kids who are essentially a year older. As opposed to being driven out of the sport.

on the other hand, younger benefitted enormously from switch to CY. also late developer, and was on receiving end of RAE disadvantage, based on school year dob cut-off. likely would not still be playing soccer at competitive level w/o CY switch. however, will be bigger than his older brother and seems to be starting to come around athletically and as a soccer player, so will see.

thus, am ambivalent about a switch back to school year.

but do know that for which ever set of players that get the smelly end of the stick for dob cut-off, whether it's Oct thru Dec or July thru Aug, there needs to be something in place to make sure these kids have an opportunity to develop.

seems obvious and not sure why this isn't a much much bigger topic w/ much more support.

USSDA used to have at least some programs for younger dob/late developers - i.e. a ynt futures camp, used to call up younger dobs to specific segment of the training centers, used to specifically scout for high potential younger dob/late developers - but all this went away in 2018-19 due to budget cuts (meanwhile, USSF is spending an unanticipated $9m defending themselves from lawsuits - awesome).

The only USSDA item remaining that benefits younger dob/late developers is the rule allowing up to two younger dob/late developer players to play down at u14 and u15.

But, from eyeballing game reports, only about 1/4 of the clubs do this, and USSDA probably should be doing a lot more to promote and normalize this, rather than having it be an exception w/ a stigma attached. (and btw, this rule doesn't cost USSF $, which is likely why it continues).

Here's a decent look at some of what Europe is doing in this area - http://uefa.to/2exNCr5; pages 17 - 23 (thanks Carlitos10!)

On the boys' side, simply put, it's a fact that significant dob developmental advantages exist up thru u17.

so, maybe, instead of folks lobbying for whatever dob cut-off date benefits their kid, just maybe focus all that energy on making sure that programs are in place to support all the kids.

(i.e. and maybe also consider that your kid isn't actually better, maybe he's just older... for now...)

(quickly ducks off soapbox to avoid incoming shrapnel...)

DD 01/04/04. I want the old age cutoff August 1st. It's better socially for my kid and many others. I want all girls to be able to play in any league they can regardless of HS Soccer.

 

[dad4]

It probably makes sense to split into different rules for rec and high level comp.

My comp kid (march) plays up anyway. I dont really care what the comp age cutoff is, so long as there is one and it is sharp. I don’t want injuries because some coach found an overweight over age kid with low skills to control the middle of the field.

For rec? Go with the age limits for the local school district. Who cares if an LA rec league has different age bands from a Vegas rec league? They don’t play each other anyway.

 

[younothat]

It probably makes sense to split into different rules for rec and high level comp.

My comp kid (march) plays up anyway. I dont really care what the comp age cutoff is, so long as there is one and it is sharp. I don’t want injuries because some coach found an overweight over age kid with low skills to control the middle of the field.

For rec? Go with the age limits for the local school district. Who cares if an LA rec league has different age bands from a Vegas rec league? They don’t play each other anyway.

There you go, that fellow #jpeter was likely saying the same thing but you put it across better.

00,01,03 all three going to or committed to college.

 

[Socal United]

We have plenty of kids playing, just make 6 month age groups instead of 12 month. Done.

 

[jpeter]

I am disagreeing with your assertion that conforming with the FIFA age brackets (I heard the UK does not, but may be wrong) has a large positive effect on US competitiveness in soccer. Youth soccer participation is no longer growing in the US. We should be doing everything we can to increase the popularity of youth soccer. In California, the current cutoff date for school is September 1. Age year soccer brackets force 1/3 of California children to play with children different grade. The time to make new soccer players is in elementary school. and the US could use more soccer players.

Ok but that's not my assertion.

Making a special accommodation for a 1/3 of potential players that's in the future, not now since school year cutoff in California wasn't Sept 1st until recently is fine but then you will have players with up to 3 differnt calendar year on the same teams. How does that help? My sons HS has 01, 02, 03 seniors for example but 80% are 02s.

US youth Soccer populality has nothing to do with age groups, haven't seen any study that indicates otherwise.

If you want to encourage more elementary school participants, futsal courts, additional programming, coaching ed is going help a bunch more.

Six month bands for younger rec player might be the way to go like socalunited mentioned

 

[Grace T.]

It probably makes sense to split into different rules for rec and high level comp.

My comp kid (march) plays up anyway. I dont really care what the comp age cutoff is, so long as there is one and it is sharp. I don’t want injuries because some coach found an overweight over age kid with low skills to control the middle of the field.

For rec? Go with the age limits for the local school district. Who cares if an LA rec league has different age bands from a Vegas rec league? They don’t play each other anyway.

Yeah but the problem is the intermediates. What about all the bronze teams (the youngers all start at bronze anyways)...somewhere along you are either going to run into a transition problem (as kids move up) or a lock in problem (so suddenly everyone in the know will try to make the switch to club soccer at the earliest ages possible so they aren't caught in the different calendar)? When a team gets promoted do they need to reshuffle? What about when relegated?

Also, the AYSO Core people might love this, but it will make it impossible for Extras, for example to transition as a team to club, to play tournaments, or to try out for United. Since AYSO is looking to build a tiered system, from VIP to a DA equivalent, under one roof, it will make it really hard for them to manage that.

If they are going to fiddle with this, the best thing to do would be to allow limited exemptions. For a more radical reform, band the birthyears by 6 months.

 

[dk_b]

1. Be more flexible with high school soccer because it inspires a local and cultural pride in the sport (like football and basketball).

Can you expand on that a bit more? What flexibility do you mean? Other than changing the prohibition on DA players playing HS, is there something else? If that were to change, there would be a whole host of other necessary changes at the DA level, including a decentralization of scheduling, so maybe I'm not picking up on the other limitations that would be in US Soccer's control.

Should add: I have a daughter who is an 02 and daughters who are 06.

 

[Dargle]

The facebook post quoted in the article (blog post?) said "US Youth"

app-facebook

Buckeye Premier Youth Soccer League
on Friday
US Youth is wanting to understand your thoughts, the implications and/or your concerns on going BACK to the old method of age determination. What are your thoughts on this if this were to be considered in the future???

It may be that US Youth Soccer is polling leagues about the possibility of a pullback, but sounds much less definite than an actual rumor of a plan being put into existence next year

 

[Husky13]

Not happening, school year varies and is not consistent with age eitherway. No don't think calendar year was a mistake and you have to align with international standard if you want to move forward.

80/20 rule for calendar year, the 20% mostly born last couple months year want to revert, don't see much support from the other 80% to go back.

The Cincy article summarizes it nicely. Kids in the younger half/third of the calendar year who are in 8th grade when 9th graders in their same calendar year are playing HS soccer are left with nothing for the entire spring season. Similar situation when they reach 12th grade. You can dismiss these issues if you want just because your kid is in the older half of the calendar year, but for many these are real problems and they are simply unnecessary.

The calendar year change was for what benefit? To align with "international standards"? How many of our youth teams are playing in international tournaments? Percentage-wise, very few. My kid has been to several. Guess what? Many of them were birth year, so we had to reshuffle our calendar year team to fit!

By the way, I am not coming at this from sour grapes. The calendar year change was better for my kid, it challenged him. It was like playing 1/2 year up, and he needed that. Plus, it prepared him better for the DA/Academy age years, which are/always have been calendar year. But, again, the calendar year structure hurts many more than it helps. It is simply wrong to require 5th grades to have to play with 6th graders, etc.

 

[Emma]

Isn’t that exactly what the “school year” banding does?

If the school year banding doesn't include kids that have been held back a year, then yes. My second concern is DOC and coaches pressuring kids to move teams again to make their teams stronger. It would allow the kids to choose which age group (school band or age band) they want to play for rather than have the DOC/coaches choose for them.

I have a boy that is in high school - he doesn't care (about anything) and this doesn't affect him either way. I have a late birthday middle school girl and she had a tough transition the first time but acclimated and most likely does not want to be forced (about anything) to move teams again. I can see a few DOC/Coaches forcing her to switch teams to make their school band stronger. If we want to retain girls in soccer programs, comp or rec, through their tween years, friendships are important.

I do not want to identify my children bc I would like to reserve the right to say randomly dumb things on this forum from time to time, as I've exercised multiple times already. I'm not as brave as Luis and EJ.

 

[Grace T.]

The calendar year change was for what benefit? To align with "international standards"? How many of our youth teams are playing in international tournaments? Percentage-wise, very few. My kid has been to several. Guess what? Many of them were birth year, so we had to reshuffle our calendar year team to fit!

This goes to the heart of the question, though. Is the goal of US soccer to prepare a USMNT and a USWNT in which case there is an overwhelming advantage to have the same players know each other and play with each other since the early teenage years. Or is the goal of US soccer to achieve a broad based participation and love for the game? Or is the goal of US soccer to create quality players reading to play in college? The goals sometimes all conflict, but US Soccer has come out on the first repeatedly since the World Cup qualification fiasco.

 

[watfly]

I have a Sep 26 kid on the slightly smaller and much lighter (weight, not color) side. I couldn't care less whether its calendar or Aug 1 cutoff, despite the perceived disadvantage of calendar year because my kid is on the younger side. Although I'd prefer not to go through another change, the "chaos" caused by the calendar year change was vastly exaggerated.

US Soccer has a huge grassroots problem that won't be solved by changing the age bands. If its truly being contemplated by US Soccer its just their way of claiming to address the grassroots problem without actually addressing the problem and with as little effort, or cost, on their part as possible.

 

[dad4]

Yeah but the problem is the intermediates. What about all the bronze teams (the youngers all start at bronze anyways)...somewhere along you are either going to run into a transition problem (as kids move up) or a lock in problem (so suddenly everyone in the know will try to make the switch to club soccer at the earliest ages possible so they aren't caught in the different calendar)? When a team gets promoted do they need to reshuffle? What about when relegated?

Also, the AYSO Core people might love this, but it will make it impossible for Extras, for example to transition as a team to club, to play tournaments, or to try out for United. Since AYSO is looking to build a tiered system, from VIP to a DA equivalent, under one roof, it will make it really hard for them to manage that.

If they are going to fiddle with this, the best thing to do would be to allow limited exemptions. For a more radical reform, band the birthyears by 6 months.

Extra and United have already completely given up on school based teams. Just treat them the same as the rest of comp. It is only rec that needs to align with school years. If you have tryouts, you’ve already given up on choosing a team to be school chums.

6 months bands is great for LA and SD. It fractures the landscape pretty severely in the midwest and mountain states. Even near me in norcal, our top teams have a hard time finding opponents on the girls side.

As for exceptions, NJB allows them for basketball, with a 24 month age band. (grade 7 and 8 combined.) The 6 foot 6 dads with redshirted kids love it. But it also means a ton of kids quit in 7th grade because they don‘t like getting shoved around by a 9th grader.

 

[Grace T.]

Extra and United have already completely given up on school based teams. Just treat them the same as the rest of comp. It is only rec that needs to align with school years. If you have tryouts, you’ve already given up on choosing a team to be school chums.

Not sure how it's run on other leagues, but AYSO Core the primary responsibility for sorting is to create a balanced team. Every kid is assigned a number ranking (1-5) and sorted to create a balanced approach. Only secondarily does AYSO consider school based. Neither of my kids nor my youngers girlfriend ever played on a team with their classmates (though in fairness, it was a very small school).

On the other hand, I've seen the school-based thing in the past be used as a way for certain AYSO coaches to fudge the ranking systems. Some regions are more severe than others on the rules, but at least for AYSO if they care about balanced, school-based shouldn't be a paramount concern.

 

[Emma]

.
Can you expand on that a bit more? What flexibility do you mean? Other than changing the prohibition on DA players playing HS, is there something else? If that were to change, there would be a whole host of other necessary changes at the DA level, including a decentralization of scheduling, so maybe I'm not picking up on the other limitations that would be in US Soccer's control.

Should add: I have a daughter who is an 02 and daughters who are 06.

I don't think we need to decentralize schedules. I think we need to have DA and high school coaches/league governing bodies work together for the benefit of the kids. Flexibility with training and game schedules during high school season. Training schedule for dual high school and Club players - two days of practice with club and two days with high school. If you have a high school game that day, you can miss practice but you have to do certain stretching/cooling down exercises to prevent injuries. A lot of the training and game schedules are based on regional needs due to weather or field space already so including this won't hurt. If there are DA Showcase/tournaments, high school coaches (league administrators) work together and not schedule games during those times. Let a kid miss a few DA/high school games without being punished if their high school team makes it deep in the championship or club tournaments.

A little less ego by high school soccer and DA soccer, and a little more collaboration for the benefit of the kids and the future of soccer in America.

Come cheer on your teammates at high school soccer games, come cheer on your high school teammates at Club games. Turn both into a community/social competitive event rather than elitist. Kids compete better and their drive to get better is stronger when they know the community and their friends are watching and cheering.

 

[66 GTO]

4 of my 5 sons play
March 05
Late late June 06
December Christmas 2011
Early Feb 2013

And my youngest will start kicking the ball next year
December 2015

I’ve said it before when it was changed to birth year that I agreed to the change
None of my sons have ever played with their classmates.
, look for the level of play that you think is good for your player and develop from there
Whether is flight 1-3
My 2 oldest started flight 3 when they were 9 and 10 and are doing good now

My 2011 is a really good player up to now
playing flight one and he came to this world 2 weeks early should have been a 2012
But it is what it is
Let’s not make excuses for our players
It doesn’t help them
Let’s prepare them. Instead.

 

[dk_b]

I don't think we need to decentralize schedules. I think we need to have DA and high school coaches/league governing bodies work together for the benefit of the kids. Flexibility with training and game schedules during high school season. Training schedule for dual high school and Club players - two days of practice with club and two days with high school. If you have a high school game that day, you can miss practice but you have to do certain stretching/cooling down exercises to prevent injuries. A lot of the training and game schedules are based on regional needs due to weather or field space already so including this won't hurt. If there are DA Showcase/tournaments, high school coaches (league administrators) work together and not schedule games during those times. Let a kid miss a few DA/high school games without being punished if their high school team makes it deep in the championship or club tournaments.

A little less ego by high school soccer and DA soccer, and a little more collaboration for the benefit of the kids and the future of soccer in America.

Come cheer on your teammates at high school soccer games, come cheer on your high school teammates at Club games. Turn both into a community/social competitive event rather than elitist. Kids compete better and their drive to get better is stronger when they know the community and their friends are watching and cheering.

The reason why I mention decentralization is that the HS schedules are highly variable, depending on where you live. CA is one of only 5 or 6 states with Winter HS (the remainder are nearly equally split between Fall and Spring). It works for ECNL because the clubs schedule for all but the national events (showcases, playoffs). Then you have to factor, at least here in CA (not sure if other state federations have similar rules), CIF's rules on simultaneously playing HS and club. Set aside whether that might be too much, CIF is very, very against this and when I have communicated with them in the past (because a national team camp was not posted on the "approved" list that CIF posts (that permits participants' participation w/o losing eligibility), CIF officials were none too sympathetic to the individual player involved - they essentially said, "make a choice. And if your kid chooses camp over HS, it will give another player an opportunity on the HS squad). Last, you'd need some real coordination among schools/conferences/sections to have a routinized division of practice/game days - not every school has ample fields to just practice whenever and play games whenever (my kid goes to an urban school in the Bay Area; they have access to one field, there are 6 soccer teams (3 boys, 3 girls) for practice and games and there are other sports that use that same field while the HS I attended is suburban with ample space and about 1/3 the number of students).

I think national-level scheduling (like US Soccer does for DA) would be next to impossible in dealing with multiple state HS federations, multiple playing seasons, field availability issues, etc. Don't get me wrong - I really like your points from a theoretical standpoint but I'm not sure they can work from a practical one. I can't stand the prohibition on HS play b/c I think that the vast, vast majority of players (including those who play in college) won't sniff national team participation so is it really worth it to prohibit such a quintessential American experience as playing for your school? (I'm entire supportive of any player deciding she/he does not want to play HS but feel strongly it should be the player's decision, not the national governing body).