MCSL rule changes for summer 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the idea of the age group determination date being August 1st. Whatever age you are by August 1st is the age group you swim in for that summer season.
So if you turn 9 on August 1st or anytime before that, you swim in 9-10s that whole summer. It makes sense.

Most of the girls in the "8&U" age group who made coach's long course and individual all stars this year were already 9 years old or days/weeks away. The fastest "8&U" girl who is breaking a bunch of MCSL records literally had her birthday announced on the individual all star meet day. Before all you keyboard warriors come at me like OMG ARE YOU A STALKER?! HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THEIR AGES?!...this is publicly available information online. If you don't like this, write to you're representative to get legislation in place. It's utterly creepy how publicly available all of our swimmers' info is on MeetMobile etc etc.

Let's not kid ourselves either about "oh this is just for fun!!! It's summer swim you troll!!!! How dare you take this from the children?!?!". I'd say 99% of the 8&U girls who made coach's long course or individual all stars are year-round club swimmers. So they're used to the year-round rule which is....you age up on your birthday. Changing it to August 1st would give ACTUAL 8&Us that aren't club swimmers a chance to make those events.

Changing the date would advantage different kids, but it wouldn’t change the huge advantage that club swimmers have. Why are you confusing those things?

Why even let club swimmers do summer swim at all then?!

I am the PP you quoted. I don’t object to club swimmers swimming, as long as they get that it’s a team rec sport and entirely different from club swimming.

But the PP I quoted seemed to be saying that the advantage that club swimmers have somehow justifies changing the age when the two things are completely separate.

The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others. I have a kid with a late July birthday, he has an advantage in Summer Swim, a disadvantage in his favorite sport which has a August 1 cut off, a bigger disadvantage in lacrosse where they play by age and lots of kids are redshirted, and unclear status in soccer right now because the ages seem to be changing. It just is what it is. But I don’t go demanding that the rules change in any of those sports. Because I am not a poor sport.

DP - I've seen the bolded argument made so many times and I think it's overblown. Is club swim mostly more intense than summer swim? Yes, absolutely. But the best clubs find ways to make practices fun, build a sense of community, and develop supportive teammates. Not all clubs foster an insanely cut-throat, in it for myself mentality. On our summer team at least, it's usually the year-round swimmers who are the best teammates, in the truest sense of the word.

But to that point, here's another rule I think MCSL should have: all kids should participate in a minimum of two practices per week, regardless of club commitments. It's not much of a team when the ringers come in on Saturdays only and clean up. Or, it leads to two very different "teams" within the larger team. That's not much fun, either.

You’ll lose the older kids who have club swim 6 days a week in morning and jobs right after.
My club swimmer tried to do at least once a week. Sometimes more. He also had club meets some weeks that made mcsl practices impossible to attend. You can’t enforce minimums because many families travel in summer or working parents can’t make 10 am practices for their younger kids.

I mean, it's ok if summer swim doesn't work for your family.