Summer Swim Age

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me guess, your kid has a spring birthday, OP.

Let me guess, your kid has a June birthday?

In seriousness, this is the OP, and it wasn’t meant to be a gripe about my personal situation: I have a spring birthday kid who is not a year round swimmer and is swimming multiple events in Divisionals.

It was more a thought about if there is a better, fairer way to do something, albeit imperfect because there has to be a cutoff somewhere, why not consider it?

Though it sounds like at least one league did in the past and changed it, so there must have been some rationale in favor of the June cutoff… maybe administrative efficiency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has an early May birthday and has been struggling mightily in the higher age group. His fault for being born a month premature I guess haha

The best 8U on our team is a 6 yo. Super fast kid with two more years in the bracket.

Meanwhile my August birthday 11 yo is struggling because she hasn't hit puberty yet and is roughly the size of a third grader. She's 5th percentile for her age. Being on the older end of summer swim doesn't mean she's not still really small for her bracket.

The birthday is only a small part of the equation.

[Anonymous]

Late June birthday kid.
Summer swim is literally the only sport where she has any kind of age advantage. Most activities are organized by grade and she’s always one of the youngest. Please let it go.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 summer birthday kids and summer swim is the only activity they do where they are the oldest for their "age group." Please let it go. Think about how these kids are mostly the youngest/smallest for just about everything else they do.

[Anonymous]

Should have timed your pregnancy better. But in all seriousness, a crappy summer swim birthday can potentially translate to an awesome spring champs birthday.

[Anonymous]

My summer boy started school on time and was always among the very youngest in every year of school. Finally had an age advantage in summer swim.

[Anonymous]

I have kids who benefit from this rule. They are the youngest in so many other places.

If you’re going to have a date based age span someone will be advantaged and someone will be disadvantaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 summer birthday kids and summer swim is the only activity they do where they are the oldest for their "age group." Please let it go. Think about how these kids are mostly the youngest/smallest for just about everything else they do.

Same. My late August girl is always the youngest everywhere except swim.

[Anonymous]

Why not make the cutoff July 31 or whenever divisionals/all stars will finally be done?

But seriously, the cutoff has to be somewhere. It doesn't really matter where - just make the cutoff. My kid plays baseball and he has a horrible birthday for little league but a great birthday for travel.

[Anonymous]

If it’s any consolation, when it comes time for swim times to actually matters in USA swimming, everyone 15+ is lumped together. Even earlier when it comes to faster meets like sectionals and futures. There are 12 year olds competing against 24 year olds and no one cries that it is unfair.

[Anonymous]

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1217440.page

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/240/1145296.page#25467826

[Anonymous]

There is a cut off in every youth sport. This is NVSL, a developmental summer swim league. Just stop!

They have to pick a date and logically at the beginning of the summer/season makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right on time. This weekend marks the annual tradition of a bunch of 11-year-olds dominating the 10 and under events at NVSL Divisionals.

My kid will dominate. My kid is 10. Dominated at 9 too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not make the cutoff July 31 or whenever divisionals/all stars will finally be done?

But seriously, the cutoff has to be somewhere. It doesn't really matter where - just make the cutoff. My kid plays baseball and he has a horrible birthday for little league but a great birthday for travel.

Why would that be more fair? It would just mean that the same kids are disadvantaged as in other sports.

My late July birthday played 2 sports with July 31 cut offs, and 2 which went by grade. He was the youngest in all of them. And he got to be the older kid for 6 weeks of summer swim every other year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the rule should be that whatever age you turn during the summer (June-August) should be your swim age for summer swim (e.g., if you turn 11 on June 2, you’re an 11-12 swimmer and need to swim 50M instead of 25M). Would seem to ease the unfair advantage of that situation a bit.

So kids that don't have summer birthdays between June and August don't get to swim at all?