Summer swim absurd age rules

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain to me what exactly the issue is? Like what are people upset about? I’ve read all the discussion and I don’t get it.

The age group spans 24 months right? The youngest and the oldest in the group will always be the same distance apart. The older one turning 11 in July doesn’t suddenly widen the gap.

Am I missing something? Do the people upset about it want narrower age groups so kids two years apart can’t compete together?

I’ll preface this by saying I don’t have a dog in the fight. I have club swimmers with fall and spring bdays who don’t want to do summer swim.

People get incensed about “unfairness” in kids’ sports, except of course, if said “unfairness” favors your own kid. The idea that a kid who has orbited the earth eleven times can win a trophy or ribbon or whatever kids get that is emblazoned with the title “9/10 year old champion” is impossible for some people to get over. You can show them a calendar, explain the 24 month duration, explain that someone will always be the oldest or the youngest, but none of that will enable them to reconcile “11 years old” and “9/10 year old”.

Club swim solves this by taking every kid’s age the first day of the meet, but even there, people focus on “oh that kid is turning 13 tomorrow, while my kid just turned 11”. I admit, I do it sometimes. But at least every kid is actually the age on the ribbon or medal, so it shuts people up. It is totally impractical to have this policy for a short summer swim season. So either they should do it by grade (3rd/4th, 5th/6th etc) or call the groups something not age related (minnows, piranhas etc), or just draw the line somewhere and let people kvetch. If they didn’t have a bellyache about the age cutoff, they would grumble about something else.

Do it by grade? Someone is always going to be the oldest and others the youngest. For my late August birthday kid, there are kids who are 18 months older than him in his grade due to red shirting. For a two grade level spread, that could mean a 30 month gap. How is that fairer?

Organizing sports by grade is precisely what leads to sports-motivated redshirting, specifically in boys. Some people are blatant about and will just tell you they redshirted so their kid would have a better shot at playing at a high level. If you really want your kid to play varsity sports in high school, redshirting is actually pretty easy way to accomplish that, assuming they have any proclivity for the sport at all. A 19 yr old senior is going to make the team most of the time, especially in boys sports.

I'm for whatever rules prevent psychotic sports parents from trying to game the system to get their kid an advantage, because those people need to be controlled. For this reason, I support the age cut offs for summer swim, even though they don't benefit my kids, because if the rules make the obsessive, hyper-competitive parents mad, that means they are probably a good idea.

Goodness, yes. Organizing by grade would be absurd - you now have March boys being redshirted to avoid being “too young.” You’ll have kids hitting puberty in the third grade by the time the idiot parents in the DMV stop redshirting to gain advantage. Travel and club sports are 1000 better because they use birth years, so your 7th grade 15 year old isn’t competing against kids who actually belong in the 7th grade. Grade based swim would be the dumbest idea ever for actual competition.

Grade level swim happens at the high school level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain to me what exactly the issue is? Like what are people upset about? I’ve read all the discussion and I don’t get it.

The age group spans 24 months right? The youngest and the oldest in the group will always be the same distance apart. The older one turning 11 in July doesn’t suddenly widen the gap.

Am I missing something? Do the people upset about it want narrower age groups so kids two years apart can’t compete together?

I’ll preface this by saying I don’t have a dog in the fight. I have club swimmers with fall and spring bdays who don’t want to do summer swim.

People get incensed about “unfairness” in kids’ sports, except of course, if said “unfairness” favors your own kid. The idea that a kid who has orbited the earth eleven times can win a trophy or ribbon or whatever kids get that is emblazoned with the title “9/10 year old champion” is impossible for some people to get over. You can show them a calendar, explain the 24 month duration, explain that someone will always be the oldest or the youngest, but none of that will enable them to reconcile “11 years old” and “9/10 year old”.

Club swim solves this by taking every kid’s age the first day of the meet, but even there, people focus on “oh that kid is turning 13 tomorrow, while my kid just turned 11”. I admit, I do it sometimes. But at least every kid is actually the age on the ribbon or medal, so it shuts people up. It is totally impractical to have this policy for a short summer swim season. So either they should do it by grade (3rd/4th, 5th/6th etc) or call the groups something not age related (minnows, piranhas etc), or just draw the line somewhere and let people kvetch. If they didn’t have a bellyache about the age cutoff, they would grumble about something else.

Do it by grade? Someone is always going to be the oldest and others the youngest. For my late August birthday kid, there are kids who are 18 months older than him in his grade due to red shirting. For a two grade level spread, that could mean a 30 month gap. How is that fairer?

Organizing sports by grade is precisely what leads to sports-motivated redshirting, specifically in boys. Some people are blatant about and will just tell you they redshirted so their kid would have a better shot at playing at a high level. If you really want your kid to play varsity sports in high school, redshirting is actually pretty easy way to accomplish that, assuming they have any proclivity for the sport at all. A 19 yr old senior is going to make the team most of the time, especially in boys sports.

I'm for whatever rules prevent psychotic sports parents from trying to game the system to get their kid an advantage, because those people need to be controlled. For this reason, I support the age cut offs for summer swim, even though they don't benefit my kids, because if the rules make the obsessive, hyper-competitive parents mad, that means they are probably a good idea.

Goodness, yes. Organizing by grade would be absurd - you now have March boys being redshirted to avoid being “too young.” You’ll have kids hitting puberty in the third grade by the time the idiot parents in the DMV stop redshirting to gain advantage. Travel and club sports are 1000 better because they use birth years, so your 7th grade 15 year old isn’t competing against kids who actually belong in the 7th grade. Grade based swim would be the dumbest idea ever for actual competition.

Grade level swim happens at the high school level.

That’s why I said club swim. And over age 15 you’re pretty much competing against everyone anyway. That would be insane at the 11-12 level when Johnny is actually 11 in the 6th grade and Peter is 14.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m just wondering if the complainers know that 50s don’t exist outside of free anymore in year round swim after age 12, so you’re precious child isn’t actually disadvantaged in anything that counts; and that many of the fastest swimmers are on the younger side of the age groups. Look at the leader boards. This may be the dumbest debate to have ever been debated, and to answer the obvious retort, no, my child isn’t impacted.

They don’t? I’m watching the world championships right now and they just did 50 back. Was I hallucinating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just wondering if the complainers know that 50s don’t exist outside of free anymore in year round swim after age 12, so you’re precious child isn’t actually disadvantaged in anything that counts; and that many of the fastest swimmers are on the younger side of the age groups. Look at the leader boards. This may be the dumbest debate to have ever been debated, and to answer the obvious retort, no, my child isn’t impacted.

They don’t? I’m watching the world championships right now and they just did 50 back. Was I hallucinating?

No you are right - I think pp must have meant that aside from international meets like FINA worlds, they are not commonly swum. Freestyle is the only 50 that is swum by 13/14 and older, from sectionals, to futures, to jr nationals to Olympic trials. They do swim the 50’s in the other 3 strokes at us nationals in order to qualify and compete at FINA worlds, but they are not Olympic events, nor are they events at ncaa meets. It’s too bad, I wish they kept them. They are fun to watch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How in the world do you know all of these kids' ages? Please tell me your not google searching them.

There are swimming sites where the club swimmers’ age and month are listed (ie 12 years 11 months). You also can see for example kids competing at 13 and over champs this weekend that are listed as being 12 on their summer team because that was their age on June 1. Parents like to complain about this but the reality is the kids don’t care. And no I’m not a summer birthday parent, my kid has a May birthday.

The top kids who are the correct age do care.

Week to week meets, I don' think my kids care at all. My record-holding kid minds a tiny bit when setting a record at say 12.5 that gets broken the next year by a classmate who has been 13 for almost two months by the time it gets broken at all stars. In our house, we do say "records are meant to be broken" and kids shrug it off for the most part, but we know a 12yo didn't get that record.

Yeah, like how the "8&U" relays at All Stars this year were all mostly made up of 9 year olds. I think there are a few age groups where the June 1st cut-off leans more towards unfair - namely, 8&U and 13-14.

Oh come on. multiple top relay teams in the 13-14s were made up of 13 year olds. I guess they are just the most amazing 13 year olds ever to beat - gasp - a 14 year old swimmer.

No, that's reasonable. However, I would not expect them to place as well against a team composed of 15 year olds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It isn’t fair but that’s the rule. I’m sure those who think it’s fair also think it’s fair when newly 19 year old division 1 swimmers finish a full year of college training, and then return home to swim against kids who were 14 years old a few weeks ago.

Clearly, that’s fair, too.

It -is- fair, because everyone is following the written rules. Those D1 college swimmers probably dominated in the previous summer, anyway, or they wouldn't be swimming D1 now.

One of the benefits of summer age-grouping is learning to enjoy the up seasons and to get through (and still enjoy) the down ones. The change from 8U to 9-10 is often a really big hit - and a great opportunity to teach patience, self-improvement, team spirit, and a lot of other things.

I have one DC with a good summer swim birthday and one with a disastrous one. Both of them have had moments of success and moments of disappointment. But they are learning to plan ahead for aging up, to look forward to having different friends in their age group, and to think through the race predictions to guess who will do well and cheer on - everyone -, regardless. We never blame anything on birthdays, and just revel in the up years when they come.

[Anonymous]

I have a DC with September birthday . But even at times I think it’s absurd in certain ways especially I have a friend whose DC birthday is May 31st . I understand the summer swim team and rules .

But it’s kind of absurd that boy who just turned 11 on May 31st was swimming against 11-12 where the 12 year old turned 13 on June 6th. I think it’s almost 2 years of age difference. We can be sportive and accept it. But the only thing not able to tolerate is 13 year olds parents bragging about the win.

If you expect other parents to be sportive then you also behave as one . It’s not like your so called 12 is 12 , he is 13. If real swim happened with 13-14 then true Level can be seen.

I would say it’s better that we have summer swim league only for summer birthday children and they can all truly compete. Everyone else could just do it as recreation swim . Then we all could see the true level. Because summer birthday swimmers are always winning and on top as they are racing with children younger than them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a DC with September birthday . But even at times I think it’s absurd in certain ways especially I have a friend whose DC birthday is May 31st . I understand the summer swim team and rules .

But it’s kind of absurd that boy who just turned 11 on May 31st was swimming against 11-12 where the 12 year old turned 13 on June 6th. I think it’s almost 2 years of age difference. We can be sportive and accept it. But the only thing not able to tolerate is 13 year olds parents bragging about the win.

If you expect other parents to be sportive then you also behave as one . It’s not like your so called 12 is 12 , he is 13. If real swim happened with 13-14 then true Level can be seen.

I would say it’s better that we have summer swim league only for summer birthday children and they can all truly compete. Everyone else could just do it as recreation swim . Then we all could see the true level. Because summer birthday swimmers are always winning and on top as they are racing with children younger than them.

This applies regardless of the age of the swimmers. Don't be a jerk about your kid winning. Teach your kid not to be a jerk about winning. It doesn't matter if they are at the very top of the age bracket or not. Don't do this.

The perception that it is somehow worse if a 13 yr old swimming in the 11-12 bracket exhibits poor sportsmanship is an illusion though. If they changed the rules and next summer, a kid who was 12 yrs 10 months old dominated the bracket and was a poor sport about it, it would be no different. In both cases, a kid is bragging about winning agains swimmers, many of whom are almost 2 years younger. It's the exact same problem.

So it's not a reason to change the rules.

I will, however, note, that one reason to keep the rules is that kids with summer birthdays often don't get the experience of being at the top of their age bracket and getting that advantage (unless they are redshirted), so that's actually an argument for keeping the current cut offs. Because summer swim really is supposed to be about having fun and being a good teammate and learning good sportsmanships, so it's a good opportunity for kids who aren't used to winning to get a taste of it and learn how to handle it appropriately (and for kids who aren't used to losing to get used to that).

[Anonymous]

I just looked through the All Stars roster and there are tons of kids at the bottom of their age bracket who made it. Lots of 15 yos swimming in the 15-18 division. 11 yos swimming in the 11-12 yo division, etc, etc. I think people are making far too big a deal about the importance of age on performance.

[Anonymous]

I understand the rules and think they should stay as they are, but if you have a summer birthday kid who dominates, just stay low key about it. There is a girl at our pool with a June birthday who is a good swimmer but her mom is super over the top in FB posts about the girl breaking pool records and winning on her older years. She did it when the the was 8 (actually 9) and now she’s doing it again now that she is 10 (but actually 11). Obnoxious in any case, but in the the particular circumstances it’s downright embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just looked through the All Stars roster and there are tons of kids at the bottom of their age bracket who made it. Lots of 15 yos swimming in the 15-18 division. 11 yos swimming in the 11-12 yo division, etc, etc. I think people are making far too big a deal about the importance of age on performance.

Maybe all those 11 yos are really 12?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand the rules and think they should stay as they are, but if you have a summer birthday kid who dominates, just stay low key about it. There is a girl at our pool with a June birthday who is a good swimmer but her mom is super over the top in FB posts about the girl breaking pool records and winning on her older years. She did it when the the was 8 (actually 9) and now she’s doing it again now that she is 10 (but actually 11). Obnoxious in any case, but in the the particular circumstances it’s downright embarrassing.

I think exactly this is the reason I hate it. Most parents are nicer so they don’t give it back to these parents who brag.

[Anonymous]

This. Especially when a 9 year old swim 8 and under . Also a 13 year old in 11-12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked through the All Stars roster and there are tons of kids at the bottom of their age bracket who made it. Lots of 15 yos swimming in the 15-18 division. 11 yos swimming in the 11-12 yo division, etc, etc. I think people are making far too big a deal about the importance of age on performance.

Maybe all those 11 yos are really 12?

In 11-12 boys IM 4 of the top 20 kids, i.e., the original All-Star qualifiers including the 2 alternates, are listed as 11 yos. Lo and behold, 3 of them are actually 11 yos. None of the 11 yos is seeded in the top 10, which suggests age definitely matters in IM.

In 11-12 boys free, only 1 of the top 20 times from divisionals was by a kid listed as an 11 yo. And he's 12. Age definitely matters in freestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand the rules and think they should stay as they are, but if you have a summer birthday kid who dominates, just stay low key about it. There is a girl at our pool with a June birthday who is a good swimmer but her mom is super over the top in FB posts about the girl breaking pool records and winning on her older years. She did it when the the was 8 (actually 9) and now she’s doing it again now that she is 10 (but actually 11). Obnoxious in any case, but in the the particular circumstances it’s downright embarrassing.

You sound bitter. The girl won those records legitimately under the same rules that all other swimmers have for the past 10+ years. Just because the age groups are misnomers doesn’t take away her accomplishments. The mother has every right to be proud. If a child at the top of the baseball age range sets records for home runs or pitching strikeouts no one would say a thing.