Summer swim kids swimming in “wrong” age group
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Anonymous
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What if we just had 144 swim levels and you only competed against swimmers born the same year and month as you? Then it would always be fair because your child would never have to compete against a child who is older or younger.
Oh, but then people would complain because swimmers would wind up winning by forfeit all the time because there was no one else in their level and that's unfair! Also, it turns out that some kids who have birthdays very close to each other can still vary a lot in size, ability, maturity, strength, and willingness to work hard. What if there are only two children in your kid's "level" but the other one is just a better swimmer than yours? Then your kid will always lose, and that's not fair! This is honestly what you all sound like. |
Anonymous
Gosh. You're an awful person. Get help. Parents of kids with summer birthdays are used to always having their kid be the youngest. It happens over and over. It seems a bit ridiculous to hear the parents of kids with school year birthdays to suddenly get bent out of shape that their kid no longer has the advantage in just this one thing. They'll harp on and on about how redshirting is wrong and age cut offs must be respected. Or how after 1st grade it doesn't really matter that their kid is 12 months older, that doesn't give an advantage, their kid is just very athletic. Yet here there is just one June 1st cutoff--the only one I've ever heard of--and those same parents are up in arms. Well, welcome to how it feels. It's no different than my 8 yo being in basketball tryouts with almost 11 yos who have already hit puberty and have 40 lbs and 14 inches on her. (And in this case the disadvantage is only for the fun summer season, your kid can still do winter swim with age cutoffs. With basketball it's the same cutoff for rec, AAU and travel so she'll never have an opportunity to not be the very youngest.) |
Anonymous
Yes, its this exactly that is rubbing me the wrong way. I have 2 summer bday kids (who are not club swimmers). When I first read this thread, I thought well I was not allowed to make excuses for my kids behavior in school "because they were the youngest" nor do I make excuses in all the other sports they participate in by grade level where redshirted kids are literally 3 years older than my kids. I just let them play the sport and strive to get better. I have one kid that is tiny and that kid is often 8-10 inches shorter than the other kids on the soccer field. They have had to learn over the years not to be afraid to get in there and mix it up with the bigger kids if they want to get the ball. Let's be real, for most/all of our kids sports is a way to have fun, teach discipline and sportsmanship. This thread leaves a bad taste in my mouth about swim in general. I am so happy to watch my kids do the cheers, hang over lanes to encourage their friends and goof around between races (especially after 2 years of covid). Parents who are complaining about a random date, please don't ruin it for the rest of us. |
Anonymous
I think what leaves a bad taste in my mouth is that the league used to age up on your birthday LIKE THE REST OF THE SPORT. But some parents that wanted to give an advantage to their summer birthday children (perhaps because as you have just complained your kid is the youngest, or they are up against redshirted kids 3 years older, etc) NOW wanted their kid to be the three year older kid crushing another. They intentionally gave them an advantage to disadvantage others. For swimmers that is tough, because swimming is all about the birthday and being FAIR. They took a fair system and made it unfair - and in some cases very unfair. A 19 year old D1 swimmer has no place coming back to summer, mixed age teams - should be the actual age, etc. |
Anonymous
Please identify the 19 year old D1 swimmer. I have a hard time believing this is actually happening https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders |
Anonymous
This is a little different though because there are defined age groups in summer swim, but then if your birthday falls in an 8 week period you are allowed to swim in an age group that you have aged out of. It’s also weird to see the listing of the kids’ ages in heat sheets and see Larla Smith age 10 when everyone knows that Larla Smith is actually age 11. |
Anonymous
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Logistically it seems much easier for a short season sport to have kids locked in to one age group for the whole season.
There are different age cut offs for different sports/activities. Seems reasonable to have one for summer swim. Summer swim: July 1 Soccer: Jan 1 School: Sept 30 Basketball (follows school grade): Sept 30 Cross Country: Dec 31. |
Anonymous
That's the accusation on this thread, but it's also possible the change was made because it's a short season and disruptive to have kids switching age groups. If there are college swimmers unfairly coming back, then make a rule against that. Changing the age cutoff won't fix it as there are still post-freshman year 18 yos who don't turn 19 until August or September. |
Anonymous
This will probably be deleted, but the second place in Boys breast is coming off his Freshman year at Mt St Marys |
Anonymous
TONS SUMMER SWIM LEAGUES USE THE 6/1 DATE! This isn't some huge conspiracy. It's logical to have kids not switch ages during a short swim season. If anything, its brings them in line with other summer swim leagues across the country. I swam in another part of the country in the 80's and the cutoff was 6/1. Look across the metro area at the other large swim league - MCSL uses this date (and I'm sure Katie Ledecky's parents didn't complain about the date). I just took a quick look at some random leagues and they are all 6/1: PMSL (Prince George's/Mont league) (there's is 11:59 p.m. on last day of May) Coastal Carolina (SC) MOKAN (KS/MO) Irvine Swim League (CA) NEPA (PA) Boise (ID) Litchfield (AZ) |
Anonymous
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If you had kids age up on their birthday, this would just be YET ANOTHER awkward thing for kids who have summer birthdays to deal with.
My kid is still in elementary and doing summer swim is important to her in part because it allows her to celebrate her birthday with a friend group at swim. Seriously, that's like 70% of the reason she likes doing it. All her friends have always celebrated their birthdays during the school year, it's a big deal to younger kids in particular -- you go to school and everyone says happy birthday to you and when you are little your parents even send in cupcakes or something. You get to be the star of the day. For years my kid never got this and it mattered to her. And then in the summer often her friends would be traveling on her birthday so she had smaller parties. She noticed and while it's not like she had a big complex about it, it was one of the things in life that she just found unfair and was sad about. Enter summer swim, which allows her to celebrate her birthday with her swim team and invite the team to her party and feel like she gets a special day. It's a big deal to her! And now people want her to literally age out of her team on her birthday and move to a different team with people she may or may not know, because they are upset about rec swim league results and my kids "unfair advantage" because she is a couple months older than their kid? Really? Y'all have the weirdest possible priorities. This is not even competitive swimming. Can you please just let kids enjoy their summer and have fun with their friends doing an activity they enjoy? This is not some conspiracy by BIG SUMMER BIRTHDAY PARENTS. I truly do not care how my child does in competition -- she does summer swim for fun. |
Anonymous
interesting. His times were actually better in the summer of 2021- at least for breast, I didn't check each stroke. It doesn't seem like that year of college swimming is providing an advantage..... |
Anonymous
I didnt look carefully, I just looked at 18 year old breast swimmers because that stroke is most correlated with age |
Anonymous
This happens in other sports, though. It happens in baseball, where the age cutoff for the 6+ summer tournaments my kids played in was May 1, so kids (including one of mine) were playing ___U baseball up to 2-3 months after they turned the next age (i.e., playing 9U baseball for the summer after turning 10 in May). And yeah, everyone knows that a fair number of kids in the tournament playing 9U (or 10U, or whatever) are not actually that age. The point is that they created a defined, one year age group - which in that case, is May 1 - April 30 - and everyone with a birthday in that one year age band is in that age group. My kids are relatively young, but I swam growing up, eventually on scholarship at an NCAA division 1 program- genuine question, do these 15-18 kids not do high school swimming? We did club swimming growing up, but the focus was the HS season, where I was a 14 year old 9th grader swimming against 18-19 year old HS seniors. I'll be honest, I'm struggling to understand why this is so harmful, particularly on the girls' side. And if the concern is that kids are returning to summer league after a year in an NCAA program, then prohibit that- a strictly age-based rule won't do it. I (and plenty of other kids, I'm sure) was 18 until September of my sophomore year of college and could have competed even if you changed the age ranges. |
Anonymous
Ummm it’s summer swim, she doesn’t go to a different team, she is competing at the same meets as her friends but swimming in heats against the kids that are actually her age. This response was just as weirdly dramatic as the posts you’re railing against. |