If your kid was one of the youngest, did it impact their ability to make competitive HS teams?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s the kid, not the age.

-Youngest in my class. Varsity all 4 years of HS and then D1.

I disagree, unless "it's the kid" includes factors such as age, age at the onset of puberty, the popularity of the sport, and the training received prior to high school. The most talented kids might be able to overcome being the youngest, smallest and latest to puberty in a competitive sport, but quite often, kids who are the youngest (less mature), small in size, and late to puberty wind up having fewer opportunities before high school than athletes who are older, bigger, or earlier to reach puberty, no matter how hard they work.

No. It’s the kid. I was just one example. Some of the best athletes in our circles also have late birthdays.

I can’t think of a single redshirted kid who is a star player.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s the kid, not the age.

-Youngest in my class. Varsity all 4 years of HS and then D1.

This may be true for the phenom, but not for the kid on the bubble. It's also an issue for the pipeline.

I have a 9 yo who adores basketball. She's pretty good, but was born the day before the AAU cutoff. That made her the absolute youngest at tryouts. She was still 8 yo in a gym with kids who were mostly 9, with many only a month or two from being 10 yo. It showed in her size, attention span and coach ability. She's still wearing girls size 7 jeans and a size 13 shoe and not yet 50 lbs. There were kids in her group who were into puberty and easily over 5 ft in a size 14 with a size 5 shoe. She played hard but looked really little and young--like the baby sister of the girls she was trying out against. I don't even know if she would have made the team because she was so frustrated at being outmatched and pushed around that she wouldn't go back for the last day of try outs. I was frustrated for her. Unfortunately AAU is the pipeline for improving in basketball in our area and I suspect that it's not going to work out for her. If she'd been born 30 minutes later she'd be a grade down and I really think it would be an entirely different outcome. She still wouldn't be the biggest, but she wouldn't have as many girls who were so so much bigger and already well into puberty. Perhaps it wouldn't matter if she was a kid who would go through puberty eary, but she's not. She'll probably shoot up around 13 yo given her family history. By then club and travel teams are established and kids will have years and years of skill development on her.

So she’s small. She will still be small in a year. Her size made the difference, not her age.

The tallest kid on my daughter’s team also happens to be the youngest.

[Anonymous]

^ not THE youngest but one of the youngest - July birthday