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Anonymous wrote:There is no good way to do this. There will always be either a month that is trapped, or two, or there will be people who game the system and hold their kids back. My DD is August bday and on grade for this area. Elsewhere in the country she might be a grade behind. But there are multiple girls on her varsity team who are Sept bdays so basically a year older, and even kids on grade with July or August bdays who were held back and are more than a year older. For club, there is no easy way to align. If SY, August has the issue. If GY, the held back kids have a huge advantage. If BY, we have all the fall trapped players. There is no perfect system. If they are strong enough, they can play up. Otherwise tough luck, including for my DD.
There's. multiple ways to address this. The easiest way to address is for SY 8/1-7/31 leagues to implement a rule that states when given the option players must play on the team thats predominately their grade in school. If you do this poof all issues go away. You have a type of modified GY where all players on the field are a specific grade. But holdbacks cant play on teams because they must be born within the eligibility window of 8/1-7/31. (or younger playing "up")
That's GY. Aug can play up. Going to 8-1 solved the problem.
Its not GY its SY with a rule that players must play on a team with players their grade in school. Do this and everyone is happy and all the playing down nonsense goes away.
I like this. It makes s lot of sense.
The only group that probably doesn't like it is the players that are youngest in their grade. But they're screwed either way unless their parents hold them back in school. Which solves the problem and the rule still works. Its like GY but without the holdbacks.
Once you start focusing of grade, it's GY with rules and not seasonal year anymore.
No one does nuance well, here, sadly. There truly is a middle way where a lot of Aug/Sep kids play up to stay with grade. When researching the switch, you can find references to how it was commonly done before -- which also may have caused angst, especially if forced (not clear that it was a hard and fast rule).
This is what people have been arguing about for over a year. If you've been around youth soccer for a while you already know where this will end up. Clubs want commitments so in the end players will be grouped by SY age and grade. Some parents have kids with Aug/Sept birthdays and know if they play with their grade they'll be the youngest. Since this is a site with parents the loudest ones will be screaming to let players play down a grade. Clubs, coaches, and recruiters arent commenting but if they were they'd all prefer that players play with their grade. In the end this is how things will end up.
Why don't they group by grade now then?
The big issue with traditional GY is parents will hold their kids back in school so they're two years older than everyone else on the team. It's what you see in HS sports a lot.
As long as soccer has an 8/1-7/31 eligibility windown parents cant hold their kids back and play them against younger players. If you add a rule to SY saying players must play on a team which is predominantly their grade in school. It forces players on the younger side of the eligibility window to play with their grade. So in the end leagues get games 100% a certain grade. Which is what recruiters want.
Why don't they group by grade now then?
Baby steps. You cant introduce too much too quickly.
Also nobody wants Traditional GY (which allows playing down). Everyone does want SY with a rule saying players must play with their grade.
So it is a baby step to GY. Meaning it is GY.
I get that you're intentionally saying GY to try and deflect. But most College Coaches want all players to be the same grade in school on the field. This is because it makes it easier for them to know what year players will graduate. Most Youth Coaches and DOCs dont know it yet unless they were around 2016 and before but SY 8/1-7/31 with a rule saying players must play on team their grade in school will make their lives 10x easier because everyone on the team is the same grade in school.
Think about it, if you have a freshman playing down on an 8th grade team they'll want to play HS soccer so they wont play on the club team during this time. What about HS homecoming, prom, etc all things 8th grade players dont do. What about recruiting seminars and classes? Wouldn't it be nice if everyone in the group was the same grade? The list goes on.