ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any one year block will advantage some players and disadvantage others. BY advantages January to March birthdays and disadvantages September to December. SY advantages September to December birthdays and disadvantages June to August. Any choice will be arbitrary and will hurt some players and help others. Is this whole debate just driven by which system advantages their particular kids?

My DD is undersized and has an early January birthday, and I can certainly see that she'd have been at a disadvantage if she'd been born two weeks earlier and had to play a different BY. But any line will have arbitrary effects like that.

Shouldn't the question be what is best as an overall system, since any line will have these effects for some player? What is the disinterested case for a change? Not saying that there isn't one, and probably a switch to SY would not impact my DD too much. But the fact that BY is bad for September to December kids so we need to switch just moves the disadvantage to a different group of kids, which isn't that compelling to me. I certainly understand why those parents want a change but why is SY preferable to BY overall? Some kids will always be the youngest in the grouping.

Dead cat argument. Leagues are not moving from Jan-Dec to Sep to Aug to avoid Sept and Q4 being the youngest. Not sure why you think this.

It’s the victim mentality the BY crazies have adopted…the world is against them and their amazing Q1/2 child…because their kid just works so hard.

100% adopted it from the SY crazies 🤣

There is no bigger victim that a certain subset of SY parents. Hands down, no contest.

I’m a SY proponent, and I can tell you 100% the least logical arguments, most self-victimized, pity partying, most DARVO arguments are the extreme SY-looneys. They take the cake.

It goes in this order:
SY crazies
BY crazies / GY crazies
August crazies
BY clingers
SY / BY normals

No one in all these pages is as crazy as the "it's not happening, because the problems with BY don't actually exist, and fyi your kid just sucks at soccer" guy. Runaway winner in the crazy contest. He managed to trigger a ton of others, indirectly leading to at least 100 of the pages of this thread.

And the runner up of SY 60+ guy was just so crazy. Like he thinks leagues are taking suggestions from parents after they spent a year discussing the change to SY.

SY+60 is the only way to make everyone across the entire US happy with SY.

By choosing a single cutoff date there will still be trapped players and their parents will screech for exemptions. Which some league will allow. Which will make everyone else pissed because someone will exploit the exemption allowance for wins.

You can't explain any of this to SY crazies because they're so excited that their kid who sucks in BY will get to play down. And guess what? They'll suck playing down as well.

It is odd how BY people (now that the inevitability of the change to SY for everyone is setting in) are now super concerned with trapped players (it was never an issue before! And 10x the number of players were/are trapped un BY) and crying for exceptions... Oh, and projecting their fears regarding their special snowflakes who will now have to play with (gasp) kids their own age! Boo hoo, your high school player won't be able to beat up middle school kids anymore...

The whole reason for changing to SY was to not have trapped players! But because you want to choose a certain cutoff date theres still trapped players!

You are the squeaky wheel under BY. They'll be the squeaky wheels under SY.

SY+60 addresses ALL trapped players in SY.

Keep going SY+60 guy. The wish casting random made up rules and exceptions and selling it like you are making a difference is awesome. Of course, incredibly pointless but still awesome. You go!

Different poster, fully acknowledging that I'm not in charge and my opinion is pointless ... I do see a benefit in what SY+60 guy is proposing, but I disagree that +60 is the right way to try to get it because it's includes too many redshirts. I'd simply reconcile school cutoffs by saying August kids play down with their grade if they started school in an August 1 cutoff district. You may call me "GY w/out redshirting guy" I'm half expecting this is what we end up with after leagues start tweaking their own league rules with exceptions.

We already have the solution that will work fine and ECNL will be using. SY (9/1 - 8/31) for U8 - U15 and then grad year (with some guidelines) U16 - U19. Simple, easy done.

GY is exactly what people dont want.

But this is the door SY opens

1. First there's waivers to allow players in the grade but slightly older to play down.
2. Second homeschoolers choose their grade to play in using a waiver to play down
3. Private schools convince parents to regrade their kids so they can be 16 year old Freshman playing against 14 year olds

SY+60 clearly defines the cutoff for waivers at 60 days before the cutoff date. This keeps the GY cheaters out and addresses all trapped players in a grade.

SY is not opening the door for exceptions at all. MLSN's biobanding already opened the door when the rules were BY.

The pretense for switching from BY to SY was to address "trapped players". Unfortunately when you choose a specific cutoff date for SY theres still trapped players. So what have you solved?

Reguarding MLSN + biobanding they can do what they want. It has no relevance on switching from BY to SY and the reasons for/against.

You've solved the issue for 90%+ of the players.

SY+60 addresses ALL the trapped players who are the correct age in the correct grade according to school start dates nationwide.

SY+60 specifically bars regrades and homeschoolers (that weren't born within 60 days of the defined cutoff date)

See how it works

You get everything you want with SY but you also keep the GY redshirt cheaters and homeschoolers out.

The regrades + homeschoolers aren't banned from playing. They're just forced to play with players their age.

Everyone needs to be very careful about SY slipping into GA. Because once it happens theres no going back. Also once it happens "cheating" becomes an arms race where ultimately kids get held back in school just to win plactic trophies.

Also have you noticed all the GY parents commenting that ECNL will just do GY for showcases. Wake up, this is your kids opportunity to be seen by scouts. Not some crazy parent who regrades their kids opportunity to play down and appear amazing while your kid rides the bench.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No matter what, the SY+60 guy has provided pages of content and I salute the effort.

Maybe because SY+60 makes sense + is a very good way to address SY shortcomings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No matter what, the SY+60 guy has provided pages of content and I salute the effort.

Also theres multiple people pushing for SY+60. Because I see it brought up and described and I'm not the one doing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what, the SY+60 guy has provided pages of content and I salute the effort.

Maybe because SY+60 makes sense + is a very good way to address SY shortcomings.

For the past 10 years, it made more sense to me to have SY instead of BY. Maybe in another 10 years, your idea about SY+60 can be adopted. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any one year block will advantage some players and disadvantage others. BY advantages January to March birthdays and disadvantages September to December. SY advantages September to December birthdays and disadvantages June to August. Any choice will be arbitrary and will hurt some players and help others. Is this whole debate just driven by which system advantages their particular kids?

My DD is undersized and has an early January birthday, and I can certainly see that she'd have been at a disadvantage if she'd been born two weeks earlier and had to play a different BY. But any line will have arbitrary effects like that.

Shouldn't the question be what is best as an overall system, since any line will have these effects for some player? What is the disinterested case for a change? Not saying that there isn't one, and probably a switch to SY would not impact my DD too much. But the fact that BY is bad for September to December kids so we need to switch just moves the disadvantage to a different group of kids, which isn't that compelling to me. I certainly understand why those parents want a change but why is SY preferable to BY overall? Some kids will always be the youngest in the grouping.

Dead cat argument. Leagues are not moving from Jan-Dec to Sep to Aug to avoid Sept and Q4 being the youngest. Not sure why you think this.

It’s the victim mentality the BY crazies have adopted…the world is against them and their amazing Q1/2 child…because their kid just works so hard.

100% adopted it from the SY crazies 🤣

There is no bigger victim that a certain subset of SY parents. Hands down, no contest.

I’m a SY proponent, and I can tell you 100% the least logical arguments, most self-victimized, pity partying, most DARVO arguments are the extreme SY-looneys. They take the cake.

It goes in this order:
SY crazies
BY crazies / GY crazies
August crazies
BY clingers
SY / BY normals

No one in all these pages is as crazy as the "it's not happening, because the problems with BY don't actually exist, and fyi your kid just sucks at soccer" guy. Runaway winner in the crazy contest. He managed to trigger a ton of others, indirectly leading to at least 100 of the pages of this thread.

Moving SY+60 guy from runner up to craziest person on this thread.

SY+60 has provided a solution that would work nationally addressing different school start dates.

You provide nothing but snark.

SY plus two months (but minus the first 2 days in July) of exceptions for kids often unnecessarily held back is not a solution. It is a dream carve out advocated by those it would help. SY60+ isn't better than SY31+ or SY90+, it's just different. How about BY120+? With this maybe they would have gotten off there butts and made the actual change for Fall 2025.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what, the SY+60 guy has provided pages of content and I salute the effort.

Also theres multiple people pushing for SY+60. Because I see it brought up and described and I'm not the one doing it.

Duh, there are multiple people for it, like all those with kids born in July and August. Pretty clear SY+60 guy is a true one man band though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what, the SY+60 guy has provided pages of content and I salute the effort.

Also theres multiple people pushing for SY+60. Because I see it brought up and described and I'm not the one doing it.

Duh, there are multiple people for it, like all those with kids born in July and August. Pretty clear SY+60 guy is a true one man band though.

SY+60 guy probably shows up to all the public USYS meetings and goes on rants about conspiracies against him and his kid. We all know that guy.

[Anonymous]

The comments about holding kids back is so dumb...i can guarantee when my late August DD went from 4 to 5 years old 2 days before school started I was not thinking about soccer when I didn't send her to school that year.

Our district was 9/1 - that doesn't mean she had to go to school that year. We didn't want her to grade high school at 17 and start college. Also, she wasn't ready for school at 4 years old...birthday was 3 days before the start of school (school starts in August in our district and ends in May).

Please that continue to base parents like me and say I held her back - it's not a hold back. it also eliminates any actual conversation as that is the only talking point.

as for soccer, i'm not worried. Being a trapped 8th grader this spring sucks. When it moves to 9/1 cut off in Fall of 26, she will be starting her sophomore year but will playing on a club team that has juniors/seniors. Could care less - by that age it doesn't matter.

Missing the opportunity to be seen during her actual grade level recruiting year will be a mess, but we can figure it out.

But the data showing so many schools have 9/1 cut offs - that doesn't mean a kid has to go to school if born before 9/1.

multiple reason kids don't start at 4. i am 99.5% sure nobody is thinking about soccer at 4 years old

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The comments about holding kids back is so dumb...i can guarantee when my late August DD went from 4 to 5 years old 2 days before school started I was not thinking about soccer when I didn't send her to school that year.

Our district was 9/1 - that doesn't mean she had to go to school that year. We didn't want her to grade high school at 17 and start college. Also, she wasn't ready for school at 4 years old...birthday was 3 days before the start of school (school starts in August in our district and ends in May).

Please that continue to base parents like me and say I held her back - it's not a hold back. it also eliminates any actual conversation as that is the only talking point.

as for soccer, i'm not worried. Being a trapped 8th grader this spring sucks. When it moves to 9/1 cut off in Fall of 26, she will be starting her sophomore year but will playing on a club team that has juniors/seniors. Could care less - by that age it doesn't matter.

Missing the opportunity to be seen during her actual grade level recruiting year will be a mess, but we can figure it out.

But the data showing so many schools have 9/1 cut offs - that doesn't mean a kid has to go to school if born before 9/1.

multiple reason kids don't start at 4. i am 99.5% sure nobody is thinking about soccer at 4 years old

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The comments about holding kids back is so dumb...i can guarantee when my late August DD went from 4 to 5 years old 2 days before school started I was not thinking about soccer when I didn't send her to school that year.

Our district was 9/1 - that doesn't mean she had to go to school that year. We didn't want her to grade high school at 17 and start college. Also, she wasn't ready for school at 4 years old...birthday was 3 days before the start of school (school starts in August in our district and ends in May).

Please that continue to base parents like me and say I held her back - it's not a hold back. it also eliminates any actual conversation as that is the only talking point.

as for soccer, i'm not worried. Being a trapped 8th grader this spring sucks. When it moves to 9/1 cut off in Fall of 26, she will be starting her sophomore year but will playing on a club team that has juniors/seniors. Could care less - by that age it doesn't matter.

Missing the opportunity to be seen during her actual grade level recruiting year will be a mess, but we can figure it out.

But the data showing so many schools have 9/1 cut offs - that doesn't mean a kid has to go to school if born before 9/1.

multiple reason kids don't start at 4. i am 99.5% sure nobody is thinking about soccer at 4 years old

Hold your kid back whatever.

Just dont complain when they're expected to play on teams with kids their age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The comments about holding kids back is so dumb...i can guarantee when my late August DD went from 4 to 5 years old 2 days before school started I was not thinking about soccer when I didn't send her to school that year.

Our district was 9/1 - that doesn't mean she had to go to school that year. We didn't want her to grade high school at 17 and start college. Also, she wasn't ready for school at 4 years old...birthday was 3 days before the start of school (school starts in August in our district and ends in May).

Please that continue to base parents like me and say I held her back - it's not a hold back. it also eliminates any actual conversation as that is the only talking point.

as for soccer, i'm not worried. Being a trapped 8th grader this spring sucks. When it moves to 9/1 cut off in Fall of 26, she will be starting her sophomore year but will playing on a club team that has juniors/seniors. Could care less - by that age it doesn't matter.

Missing the opportunity to be seen during her actual grade level recruiting year will be a mess, but we can figure it out.

But the data showing so many schools have 9/1 cut offs - that doesn't mean a kid has to go to school if born before 9/1.

multiple reason kids don't start at 4. i am 99.5% sure nobody is thinking about soccer at 4 years old

Hold your kid back whatever.

Just dont complain when they're expected to play on teams with kids their age.

Man, you hold back/redshirt conspiracy weirdos are something. Ignorant, dumb, both, not sure, but something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The comments about holding kids back is so dumb...i can guarantee when my late August DD went from 4 to 5 years old 2 days before school started I was not thinking about soccer when I didn't send her to school that year.

Our district was 9/1 - that doesn't mean she had to go to school that year. We didn't want her to grade high school at 17 and start college. Also, she wasn't ready for school at 4 years old...birthday was 3 days before the start of school (school starts in August in our district and ends in May).

Please that continue to base parents like me and say I held her back - it's not a hold back. it also eliminates any actual conversation as that is the only talking point.

as for soccer, i'm not worried. Being a trapped 8th grader this spring sucks. When it moves to 9/1 cut off in Fall of 26, she will be starting her sophomore year but will playing on a club team that has juniors/seniors. Could care less - by that age it doesn't matter.

Missing the opportunity to be seen during her actual grade level recruiting year will be a mess, but we can figure it out.

But the data showing so many schools have 9/1 cut offs - that doesn't mean a kid has to go to school if born before 9/1.

multiple reason kids don't start at 4. i am 99.5% sure nobody is thinking about soccer at 4 years old

Hold your kid back whatever.

Just dont complain when they're expected to play on teams with kids their age.

Man, you hold back/redshirt conspiracy weirdos are something. Ignorant, dumb, both, not sure, but something.

Cheaters gonna cheat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The comments about holding kids back is so dumb...i can guarantee when my late August DD went from 4 to 5 years old 2 days before school started I was not thinking about soccer when I didn't send her to school that year.

Our district was 9/1 - that doesn't mean she had to go to school that year. We didn't want her to grade high school at 17 and start college. Also, she wasn't ready for school at 4 years old...birthday was 3 days before the start of school (school starts in August in our district and ends in May).

Please that continue to base parents like me and say I held her back - it's not a hold back. it also eliminates any actual conversation as that is the only talking point.

as for soccer, i'm not worried. Being a trapped 8th grader this spring sucks. When it moves to 9/1 cut off in Fall of 26, she will be starting her sophomore year but will playing on a club team that has juniors/seniors. Could care less - by that age it doesn't matter.

Missing the opportunity to be seen during her actual grade level recruiting year will be a mess, but we can figure it out.

But the data showing so many schools have 9/1 cut offs - that doesn't mean a kid has to go to school if born before 9/1.

multiple reason kids don't start at 4. i am 99.5% sure nobody is thinking about soccer at 4 years old

Hold your kid back whatever.

Just dont complain when they're expected to play on teams with kids their age.

Man, you hold back/redshirt conspiracy weirdos are something. Ignorant, dumb, both, not sure, but something.

Both. Definitely both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any one year block will advantage some players and disadvantage others. BY advantages January to March birthdays and disadvantages September to December. SY advantages September to December birthdays and disadvantages June to August. Any choice will be arbitrary and will hurt some players and help others. Is this whole debate just driven by which system advantages their particular kids?

My DD is undersized and has an early January birthday, and I can certainly see that she'd have been at a disadvantage if she'd been born two weeks earlier and had to play a different BY. But any line will have arbitrary effects like that.

Shouldn't the question be what is best as an overall system, since any line will have these effects for some player? What is the disinterested case for a change? Not saying that there isn't one, and probably a switch to SY would not impact my DD too much. But the fact that BY is bad for September to December kids so we need to switch just moves the disadvantage to a different group of kids, which isn't that compelling to me. I certainly understand why those parents want a change but why is SY preferable to BY overall? Some kids will always be the youngest in the grouping.

Dead cat argument. Leagues are not moving from Jan-Dec to Sep to Aug to avoid Sept and Q4 being the youngest. Not sure why you think this.

It’s the victim mentality the BY crazies have adopted…the world is against them and their amazing Q1/2 child…because their kid just works so hard.

100% adopted it from the SY crazies 🤣

There is no bigger victim that a certain subset of SY parents. Hands down, no contest.

I’m a SY proponent, and I can tell you 100% the least logical arguments, most self-victimized, pity partying, most DARVO arguments are the extreme SY-looneys. They take the cake.

It goes in this order:
SY crazies
BY crazies / GY crazies
August crazies
BY clingers
SY / BY normals

No one in all these pages is as crazy as the "it's not happening, because the problems with BY don't actually exist, and fyi your kid just sucks at soccer" guy. Runaway winner in the crazy contest. He managed to trigger a ton of others, indirectly leading to at least 100 of the pages of this thread.

And the runner up of SY 60+ guy was just so crazy. Like he thinks leagues are taking suggestions from parents after they spent a year discussing the change to SY.

SY+60 is the only way to make everyone across the entire US happy with SY.

By choosing a single cutoff date there will still be trapped players and their parents will screech for exemptions. Which some league will allow. Which will make everyone else pissed because someone will exploit the exemption allowance for wins.

You can't explain any of this to SY crazies because they're so excited that their kid who sucks in BY will get to play down. And guess what? They'll suck playing down as well.

It is odd how BY people (now that the inevitability of the change to SY for everyone is setting in) are now super concerned with trapped players (it was never an issue before! And 10x the number of players were/are trapped un BY) and crying for exceptions... Oh, and projecting their fears regarding their special snowflakes who will now have to play with (gasp) kids their own age! Boo hoo, your high school player won't be able to beat up middle school kids anymore...

The whole reason for changing to SY was to not have trapped players! But because you want to choose a certain cutoff date theres still trapped players!

You are the squeaky wheel under BY. They'll be the squeaky wheels under SY.

SY+60 addresses ALL trapped players in SY.

Keep going SY+60 guy. The wish casting random made up rules and exceptions and selling it like you are making a difference is awesome. Of course, incredibly pointless but still awesome. You go!

Different poster, fully acknowledging that I'm not in charge and my opinion is pointless ... I do see a benefit in what SY+60 guy is proposing, but I disagree that +60 is the right way to try to get it because it's includes too many redshirts. I'd simply reconcile school cutoffs by saying August kids play down with their grade if they started school in an August 1 cutoff district. You may call me "GY w/out redshirting guy" I'm half expecting this is what we end up with after leagues start tweaking their own league rules with exceptions.

We already have the solution that will work fine and ECNL will be using. SY (9/1 - 8/31) for U8 - U15 and then grad year (with some guidelines) U16 - U19. Simple, easy done.

GY is exactly what people dont want.

But this is the door SY opens

1. First there's waivers to allow players in the grade but slightly older to play down.
2. Second homeschoolers choose their grade to play in using a waiver to play down
3. Private schools convince parents to regrade their kids so they can be 16 year old Freshman playing against 14 year olds

SY+60 clearly defines the cutoff for waivers at 60 days before the cutoff date. This keeps the GY cheaters out and addresses all trapped players in a grade.

SY also has strict cutoff dates….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any one year block will advantage some players and disadvantage others. BY advantages January to March birthdays and disadvantages September to December. SY advantages September to December birthdays and disadvantages June to August. Any choice will be arbitrary and will hurt some players and help others. Is this whole debate just driven by which system advantages their particular kids?

My DD is undersized and has an early January birthday, and I can certainly see that she'd have been at a disadvantage if she'd been born two weeks earlier and had to play a different BY. But any line will have arbitrary effects like that.

Shouldn't the question be what is best as an overall system, since any line will have these effects for some player? What is the disinterested case for a change? Not saying that there isn't one, and probably a switch to SY would not impact my DD too much. But the fact that BY is bad for September to December kids so we need to switch just moves the disadvantage to a different group of kids, which isn't that compelling to me. I certainly understand why those parents want a change but why is SY preferable to BY overall? Some kids will always be the youngest in the grouping.

Dead cat argument. Leagues are not moving from Jan-Dec to Sep to Aug to avoid Sept and Q4 being the youngest. Not sure why you think this.

It’s the victim mentality the BY crazies have adopted…the world is against them and their amazing Q1/2 child…because their kid just works so hard.

100% adopted it from the SY crazies 🤣

There is no bigger victim that a certain subset of SY parents. Hands down, no contest.

I’m a SY proponent, and I can tell you 100% the least logical arguments, most self-victimized, pity partying, most DARVO arguments are the extreme SY-looneys. They take the cake.

It goes in this order:
SY crazies
BY crazies / GY crazies
August crazies
BY clingers
SY / BY normals

No one in all these pages is as crazy as the "it's not happening, because the problems with BY don't actually exist, and fyi your kid just sucks at soccer" guy. Runaway winner in the crazy contest. He managed to trigger a ton of others, indirectly leading to at least 100 of the pages of this thread.

And the runner up of SY 60+ guy was just so crazy. Like he thinks leagues are taking suggestions from parents after they spent a year discussing the change to SY.

SY+60 is the only way to make everyone across the entire US happy with SY.

By choosing a single cutoff date there will still be trapped players and their parents will screech for exemptions. Which some league will allow. Which will make everyone else pissed because someone will exploit the exemption allowance for wins.

You can't explain any of this to SY crazies because they're so excited that their kid who sucks in BY will get to play down. And guess what? They'll suck playing down as well.

It is odd how BY people (now that the inevitability of the change to SY for everyone is setting in) are now super concerned with trapped players (it was never an issue before! And 10x the number of players were/are trapped un BY) and crying for exceptions... Oh, and projecting their fears regarding their special snowflakes who will now have to play with (gasp) kids their own age! Boo hoo, your high school player won't be able to beat up middle school kids anymore...

The whole reason for changing to SY was to not have trapped players! But because you want to choose a certain cutoff date theres still trapped players!

You are the squeaky wheel under BY. They'll be the squeaky wheels under SY.

SY+60 addresses ALL trapped players in SY.

Keep going SY+60 guy. The wish casting random made up rules and exceptions and selling it like you are making a difference is awesome. Of course, incredibly pointless but still awesome. You go!

Different poster, fully acknowledging that I'm not in charge and my opinion is pointless ... I do see a benefit in what SY+60 guy is proposing, but I disagree that +60 is the right way to try to get it because it's includes too many redshirts. I'd simply reconcile school cutoffs by saying August kids play down with their grade if they started school in an August 1 cutoff district. You may call me "GY w/out redshirting guy" I'm half expecting this is what we end up with after leagues start tweaking their own league rules with exceptions.

We already have the solution that will work fine and ECNL will be using. SY (9/1 - 8/31) for U8 - U15 and then grad year (with some guidelines) U16 - U19. Simple, easy done.

GY is exactly what people dont want.

But this is the door SY opens

1. First there's waivers to allow players in the grade but slightly older to play down.
2. Second homeschoolers choose their grade to play in using a waiver to play down
3. Private schools convince parents to regrade their kids so they can be 16 year old Freshman playing against 14 year olds

SY+60 clearly defines the cutoff for waivers at 60 days before the cutoff date. This keeps the GY cheaters out and addresses all trapped players in a grade.

SY is not opening the door for exceptions at all. MLSN's biobanding already opened the door when the rules were BY.

The pretense for switching from BY to SY was to address "trapped players". Unfortunately when you choose a specific cutoff date for SY theres still trapped players. So what have you solved?

Reguarding MLSN + biobanding they can do what they want. It has no relevance on switching from BY to SY and the reasons for/against.

You've solved the issue for 90%+ of the players.

SY+60 addresses ALL the trapped players who are the correct age in the correct grade according to school start dates nationwide.

SY+60 specifically bars regrades and homeschoolers (that weren't born within 60 days of the defined cutoff date)

See how it works

You get everything you want with SY but you also keep the GY redshirt cheaters and homeschoolers out.

The regrades + homeschoolers aren't banned from playing. They're just forced to play with players their age.

Everyone needs to be very careful about SY slipping into GA. Because once it happens theres no going back. Also once it happens "cheating" becomes an arms race where ultimately kids get held back in school just to win plactic trophies.

Also have you noticed all the GY parents commenting that ECNL will just do GY for showcases. Wake up, this is your kids opportunity to be seen by scouts. Not some crazy parent who regrades their kids opportunity to play down and appear amazing while your kid rides the bench.

As a teacher I’ve seen 10-1 girls start early compared to start late. I do not see it as an issue on the girls side because most parents do not want to hold their daughters back.

Boys are different and tend to be better off starting school a little later to help with maturity but even the. I have not seen as an issue and it’s very rare to have a kid in class that was held back.