Summer swim kids swimming in “wrong” age group

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, what a bunch of whiners. There has to be a cutoff date. Good for some, bad for others. Oh well.

It’s so true there will be complaining either way but which complaint has more merit: there is a 13 year old competing against 11-12 year olds or there is a 13 year old who is competing against 13-14 year olds?

This. My kid has a February birthday which sucks for championship swim season but it makes sense that she has to compete as her actual age and doesn’t get a free pass to tear through younger kids at JOs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, what a bunch of whiners. There has to be a cutoff date. Good for some, bad for others. Oh well.

It’s so true there will be complaining either way but which complaint has more merit: there is a 13 year old competing against 11-12 year olds or there is a 13 year old who is competing against 13-14 year olds?

But this falls apart upon any close analysis.

Yes, an 11 year old might compete against a 13 year old. But not a just-turned 11 year old (who would wind up competing against younger kids). And the 13 yr old is a just-turned 13 yr old. So the idea that this is some massive age difference is silly. It's not. It's around 18 months. Just like if you aged up the kid on their birthday, they could be a just-turned 13 yr old competing against kids who are almost 15. Again -- about 18 months.

Meaning it doesn't matter. It's arbitrary and either way, you'll have kids who are 18+ months apart competing against each other. It will feel a little unfair to the younger kid and a little advantageous for the older kid (in some cases, plenty of kids are big or small for their age so it's not actually that clear cut), but it's not a huge deal. And it happens no matter where the cut offs are.

It’s not the massive difference in age - it’s the massive difference in bodies. A 13 year girl could be fully done with puberty - and done growing, compared with an 11 year old. A 15 year old boy is typically massive compared to his 13-14 year old counterparts. Those boys like up and many of the fastest kids are 6’+ compared to boys who may be 5’3 + or -. Go watch these line ups. The remainder of the swim year, you swim the age group that you are on day one of the meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s birthday is June 1. So will she be aged up or down?

From the NVSL handbook, "The eligibility of a swimmer to compete in an age group shall be determined by his or her age on June 1 of the current year." If she turns 11 on June 1, she's 11 for summer swim. If she turns 11 on June 2, she's 10 by summer league rules.

Well that stinks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God, what a bunch of whiners. There has to be a cutoff date. Good for some, bad for others. Oh well.

Yep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, what a bunch of whiners. There has to be a cutoff date. Good for some, bad for others. Oh well.

It’s so true there will be complaining either way but which complaint has more merit: there is a 13 year old competing against 11-12 year olds or there is a 13 year old who is competing against 13-14 year olds?

But this falls apart upon any close analysis.

Yes, an 11 year old might compete against a 13 year old. But not a just-turned 11 year old (who would wind up competing against younger kids). And the 13 yr old is a just-turned 13 yr old. So the idea that this is some massive age difference is silly. It's not. It's around 18 months. Just like if you aged up the kid on their birthday, they could be a just-turned 13 yr old competing against kids who are almost 15. Again -- about 18 months.

Meaning it doesn't matter. It's arbitrary and either way, you'll have kids who are 18+ months apart competing against each other. It will feel a little unfair to the younger kid and a little advantageous for the older kid (in some cases, plenty of kids are big or small for their age so it's not actually that clear cut), but it's not a huge deal. And it happens no matter where the cut offs are.

It’s not the massive difference in age - it’s the massive difference in bodies. A 13 year girl could be fully done with puberty - and done growing, compared with an 11 year old. A 15 year old boy is typically massive compared to his 13-14 year old counterparts. Those boys like up and many of the fastest kids are 6’+ compared to boys who may be 5’3 + or -. Go watch these line ups. The remainder of the swim year, you swim the age group that you are on day one of the meet.

It's a two year window whether it runs June-June or August-August or kids age up on their birthdays. Still the exact same 2 year age range within the division. Identical. 24 months to the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, what a bunch of whiners. There has to be a cutoff date. Good for some, bad for others. Oh well.

It’s so true there will be complaining either way but which complaint has more merit: there is a 13 year old competing against 11-12 year olds or there is a 13 year old who is competing against 13-14 year olds?

But this falls apart upon any close analysis.

Yes, an 11 year old might compete against a 13 year old. But not a just-turned 11 year old (who would wind up competing against younger kids). And the 13 yr old is a just-turned 13 yr old. So the idea that this is some massive age difference is silly. It's not. It's around 18 months. Just like if you aged up the kid on their birthday, they could be a just-turned 13 yr old competing against kids who are almost 15. Again -- about 18 months.

Meaning it doesn't matter. It's arbitrary and either way, you'll have kids who are 18+ months apart competing against each other. It will feel a little unfair to the younger kid and a little advantageous for the older kid (in some cases, plenty of kids are big or small for their age so it's not actually that clear cut), but it's not a huge deal. And it happens no matter where the cut offs are.

It’s not the massive difference in age - it’s the massive difference in bodies. A 13 year girl could be fully done with puberty - and done growing, compared with an 11 year old. A 15 year old boy is typically massive compared to his 13-14 year old counterparts. Those boys like up and many of the fastest kids are 6’+ compared to boys who may be 5’3 + or -. Go watch these line ups. The remainder of the swim year, you swim the age group that you are on day one of the meet.

It's a two year window whether it runs June-June or August-August or kids age up on their birthdays. Still the exact same 2 year age range within the division. Identical. 24 months to the day.

Exactly. I dont see the drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s an interesting point. My son is a small 7 and he is racing against kids that turned 9 mid season. There is a huge difference between a 7 year old and a 9 year old in height, weight, strength.

Hang on…wait til your swimmer is 11 swimming against that kid when he’s 13.

You poor thing. Your 11 year old swimmer must not be very fast. My 11 year old swimmer can hold their own against the 13 year olds.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

There is a reason for that in team sports vs individual because there are positions on the court/in the field that need to be filled in team sports, as well as developing team chemistry, etc. None of those considerations come into play in swimming, it’s you against the clock. There is literally no reason for there to be kids who have aged out of a group swimming down. It’s a short season, set the cutoff date on August 1st or August 15th (to make sure all stars is complete) and be done with it. It’s so counterintuitive to have swim leagues that start Memorial Day and have an age up cutoff on June 1st as opposed to August at the end of the season. If the cutoff is august no one could complain about 13 year olds swimming in the 11-12 age group.

Yikes, talk about missing the point. First- As someone else said, any way you slice it, kids within a 24 month band are swimming against one another, except at the senior level. That’s consistent with the way other sports do it. And as others have pointed out, you do have the issue of a relay swimmer being eligible during one part of the season but not at all stars. You seem to be really concerned with the logic of a 13 year old being assigned to the 11-12 age group, but keep phrasing it as though that kid is wrongfully swimming against kids who are more than 2 years younger. It’s kind of bizarre, and my point was that for the sake of ease and consistency that’s what other sports do. To the extent there is a concern about the 15-18 age range, if people are this concerned with consistency with club swimming, I’m surprised you’re not pushing for a separate 15-16 age group.

Second- I reference high school swimming because NVSL is more akin to that, and frankly I feel like you and other posters here don’t have a lot of experience with swimming in a team vs club environment. The difference between NVSL and club swimming is that teams develop lineups and compete in dual meets and divisional meets, and that championships are awarded based on what happens over the course of 6+ weeks. Swimming is an individual sport but NVSL is a team competition. That’s why it’s fun, FFS! The season is literally 5 dual meets long, plus capstone all star and champions meets, which are based on performance during the season. In your scenario, say my team has a great 10 year old who turns 11 on June 30th. So that kid is eligible to swim 9-10, and then is moved up for the last few dual meets. But those meets are typically against better teams. How do you fairly determine division winners? I.e., Chesterbrook has the best record but they got to swim tuckahoe when 4 kids had aged up, whereas Overlee had to swim them before. Are teams to look at their lineups and lobby the league to swim their toughest teams early in the season before anyone can age up? (My kids’ team is in division one, and I can guarantee you this would be a bone of contention). This is not a club meet- it’s not JOs and it’s not zones, or whatever other club meet your kids do in the winter and it’s not correct to say that lineups dont matter, and it’s simply the swimmer against the clock. If that were true, why would age group matter at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s an interesting point. My son is a small 7 and he is racing against kids that turned 9 mid season. There is a huge difference between a 7 year old and a 9 year old in height, weight, strength.

Hang on…wait til your swimmer is 11 swimming against that kid when he’s 13.

You poor thing. Your 11 year old swimmer must not be very fast. My 11 year old swimmer can hold their own against the 13 year olds.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

There is a reason for that in team sports vs individual because there are positions on the court/in the field that need to be filled in team sports, as well as developing team chemistry, etc. None of those considerations come into play in swimming, it’s you against the clock. There is literally no reason for there to be kids who have aged out of a group swimming down. It’s a short season, set the cutoff date on August 1st or August 15th (to make sure all stars is complete) and be done with it. It’s so counterintuitive to have swim leagues that start Memorial Day and have an age up cutoff on June 1st as opposed to August at the end of the season. If the cutoff is august no one could complain about 13 year olds swimming in the 11-12 age group.

Yikes, talk about missing the point. First- As someone else said, any way you slice it, kids within a 24 month band are swimming against one another, except at the senior level. That’s consistent with the way other sports do it. And as others have pointed out, you do have the issue of a relay swimmer being eligible during one part of the season but not at all stars. You seem to be really concerned with the logic of a 13 year old being assigned to the 11-12 age group, but keep phrasing it as though that kid is wrongfully swimming against kids who are more than 2 years younger. It’s kind of bizarre, and my point was that for the sake of ease and consistency that’s what other sports do. To the extent there is a concern about the 15-18 age range, if people are this concerned with consistency with club swimming, I’m surprised you’re not pushing for a separate 15-16 age group.

Second- I reference high school swimming because NVSL is more akin to that, and frankly I feel like you and other posters here don’t have a lot of experience with swimming in a team vs club environment. The difference between NVSL and club swimming is that teams develop lineups and compete in dual meets and divisional meets, and that championships are awarded based on what happens over the course of 6+ weeks. Swimming is an individual sport but NVSL is a team competition. That’s why it’s fun, FFS! The season is literally 5 dual meets long, plus capstone all star and champions meets, which are based on performance during the season. In your scenario, say my team has a great 10 year old who turns 11 on June 30th. So that kid is eligible to swim 9-10, and then is moved up for the last few dual meets. But those meets are typically against better teams. How do you fairly determine division winners? I.e., Chesterbrook has the best record but they got to swim tuckahoe when 4 kids had aged up, whereas Overlee had to swim them before. Are teams to look at their lineups and lobby the league to swim their toughest teams early in the season before anyone can age up? (My kids’ team is in division one, and I can guarantee you this would be a bone of contention). This is not a club meet- it’s not JOs and it’s not zones, or whatever other club meet your kids do in the winter and it’s not correct to say that lineups dont matter, and it’s simply the swimmer against the clock. If that were true, why would age group matter at all?

Exactly. I think this is where the disconnect is. The club swimmers are trying to assign the club swim rules to summer swim. Summer swim IS based around the team mentality, not the individual swimmer. It is literally the point of the entire league - foster a team environment among kids who enjoy an activity. No matter how you slice it, there are 24 months between the youngest and oldest (except 8U and 15-18).

[Anonymous]

And this is exactly why swim parents get a bad rap.

One bad apple who can't leave it alone. Sorry your kid can't win.

[Anonymous]

PP poster. I will add that a kid joined the team who was obsessed with other kids times and was vocal about it. I am certain this was coming from their parents - but my child was floored that this kid knew my child's times and was vocal about being pleased the one time they had a better time. The interaction was in front of me and I couldn't help but role my eyes - because you know - its summer swim and my child is there to have fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s an interesting point. My son is a small 7 and he is racing against kids that turned 9 mid season. There is a huge difference between a 7 year old and a 9 year old in height, weight, strength.

Hang on…wait til your swimmer is 11 swimming against that kid when he’s 13.

You poor thing. Your 11 year old swimmer must not be very fast. My 11 year old swimmer can hold their own against the 13 year olds.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

There is a reason for that in team sports vs individual because there are positions on the court/in the field that need to be filled in team sports, as well as developing team chemistry, etc. None of those considerations come into play in swimming, it’s you against the clock. There is literally no reason for there to be kids who have aged out of a group swimming down. It’s a short season, set the cutoff date on August 1st or August 15th (to make sure all stars is complete) and be done with it. It’s so counterintuitive to have swim leagues that start Memorial Day and have an age up cutoff on June 1st as opposed to August at the end of the season. If the cutoff is august no one could complain about 13 year olds swimming in the 11-12 age group.

Yikes, talk about missing the point. First- As someone else said, any way you slice it, kids within a 24 month band are swimming against one another, except at the senior level. That’s consistent with the way other sports do it. And as others have pointed out, you do have the issue of a relay swimmer being eligible during one part of the season but not at all stars. You seem to be really concerned with the logic of a 13 year old being assigned to the 11-12 age group, but keep phrasing it as though that kid is wrongfully swimming against kids who are more than 2 years younger. It’s kind of bizarre, and my point was that for the sake of ease and consistency that’s what other sports do. To the extent there is a concern about the 15-18 age range, if people are this concerned with consistency with club swimming, I’m surprised you’re not pushing for a separate 15-16 age group.

Second- I reference high school swimming because NVSL is more akin to that, and frankly I feel like you and other posters here don’t have a lot of experience with swimming in a team vs club environment. The difference between NVSL and club swimming is that teams develop lineups and compete in dual meets and divisional meets, and that championships are awarded based on what happens over the course of 6+ weeks. Swimming is an individual sport but NVSL is a team competition. That’s why it’s fun, FFS! The season is literally 5 dual meets long, plus capstone all star and champions meets, which are based on performance during the season. In your scenario, say my team has a great 10 year old who turns 11 on June 30th. So that kid is eligible to swim 9-10, and then is moved up for the last few dual meets. But those meets are typically against better teams. How do you fairly determine division winners? I.e., Chesterbrook has the best record but they got to swim tuckahoe when 4 kids had aged up, whereas Overlee had to swim them before. Are teams to look at their lineups and lobby the league to swim their toughest teams early in the season before anyone can age up? (My kids’ team is in division one, and I can guarantee you this would be a bone of contention). This is not a club meet- it’s not JOs and it’s not zones, or whatever other club meet your kids do in the winter and it’s not correct to say that lineups dont matter, and it’s simply the swimmer against the clock. If that were true, why would age group matter at all?

Well put! The voice of reason prevails !

[Anonymous]

The pp's notion that every team's last few dual meets are "typically against better teams" is ridiculous. One team has to swim against the worst team in the division every week. And despite the best attempts at seedings teams for parity, it's often the case that teams vastly under or over-perform their seedings (e.g., a team expected to be the best team in the division is actually the weakest team and vice versa). Look at D3, OKM was the lowest seed but ended up with the best record; DT was the top seed but ended up with the worst record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, what a bunch of whiners. There has to be a cutoff date. Good for some, bad for others. Oh well.

It’s so true there will be complaining either way but which complaint has more merit: there is a 13 year old competing against 11-12 year olds or there is a 13 year old who is competing against 13-14 year olds?

But this falls apart upon any close analysis.

Yes, an 11 year old might compete against a 13 year old. But not a just-turned 11 year old (who would wind up competing against younger kids). And the 13 yr old is a just-turned 13 yr old. So the idea that this is some massive age difference is silly. It's not. It's around 18 months. Just like if you aged up the kid on their birthday, they could be a just-turned 13 yr old competing against kids who are almost 15. Again -- about 18 months.

Meaning it doesn't matter. It's arbitrary and either way, you'll have kids who are 18+ months apart competing against each other. It will feel a little unfair to the younger kid and a little advantageous for the older kid (in some cases, plenty of kids are big or small for their age so it's not actually that clear cut), but it's not a huge deal. And it happens no matter where the cut offs are.

It’s not the massive difference in age - it’s the massive difference in bodies. A 13 year girl could be fully done with puberty - and done growing, compared with an 11 year old. A 15 year old boy is typically massive compared to his 13-14 year old counterparts. Those boys like up and many of the fastest kids are 6’+ compared to boys who may be 5’3 + or -. Go watch these line ups. The remainder of the swim year, you swim the age group that you are on day one of the meet.

It's a two year window whether it runs June-June or August-August or kids age up on their birthdays. Still the exact same 2 year age range within the division. Identical. 24 months to the day.

Exactly. I dont see the drama.

Not when they are under “8.” This isn’t how swim is done for any other USA swimming meet - you age up, when you age up. There are still great swim bdays then, but it doesn’t change the age up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pp's notion that every team's last few dual meets are "typically against better teams" is ridiculous. One team has to swim against the worst team in the division every week. And despite the best attempts at seedings teams for parity, it's often the case that teams vastly under or over-perform their seedings (e.g., a team expected to be the best team in the division is actually the weakest team and vice versa). Look at D3, OKM was the lowest seed but ended up with the best record; DT was the top seed but ended up with the worst record.

That’s the way it has worked in division one. Regardless, you haven’t addressed how a divisional championship can be awarded when teams are swimming each other with different rosters. It’s not a level playing field and again, reflects a failure to understand what the league is- a two month long team competition. The rules for club swim make sense in the context of club swimming. This is not that. That’s the appeal of summer swim for kids who don’t want to do it year round.

It’s perfectly rational to be a club only swimmer- hell, probably the most successful Nova swimmer of the past few years didn’t participate in the NVSL. But it’s odd to keep insisting that the team aspect of this league be minimized in service of individual rankings and awards. That’s what makes summer swim different and appealing, particularly as an entry point for kids who don’t swim year round.

[Anonymous]

If birthday cut-off were at the end of the season, the rosters would stay the same throughout and you wouldn't have 9, 11, and 13 years old winning the top prizes at the end of season meet for the respective 8&u, 9-10, and 11-12 age groups.