MCSL rule changes for summer 2026
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Anonymous
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I love the idea of the age group determination date being August 1st. Whatever age you are by August 1st is the age group you swim in for that summer season.
So if you turn 9 on August 1st or anytime before that, you swim in 9-10s that whole summer. It makes sense. Most of the girls in the "8&U" age group who made coach's long course and individual all stars this year were already 9 years old or days/weeks away. The fastest "8&U" girl who is breaking a bunch of MCSL records literally had her birthday announced on the individual all star meet day. Before all you keyboard warriors come at me like OMG ARE YOU A STALKER?! HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THEIR AGES?!...this is publicly available information online. If you don't like this, write to you're representative to get legislation in place. It's utterly creepy how publicly available all of our swimmers' info is on MeetMobile etc etc. Let's not kid ourselves either about "oh this is just for fun!!! It's summer swim you troll!!!! How dare you take this from the children?!?!". I'd say 99% of the 8&U girls who made coach's long course or individual all stars are year-round club swimmers. So they're used to the year-round rule which is....you age up on your birthday. Changing it to August 1st would give ACTUAL 8&Us that aren't club swimmers a chance to make those events. |
Anonymous
I had never thought about that before! I could get onboard with a maximum of 2 events in an A meet to be more inclusive. |
Anonymous
Why allow them at all? As a parent who doesn’t have a budget for either club swim or tech suits, why should my kid suddenly be disadvantaged at those three meets. |
Anonymous
Changing the date would advantage different kids, but it wouldn’t change the huge advantage that club swimmers have. Why are you confusing those things? |
Anonymous
Why even let club swimmers do summer swim at all then?! |
Anonymous
I can get behind banning tech suits for all ages at all meets. |
Anonymous
Some of this post makes no sense. If there were swimmers “days or weeks away” from turning 9 when they swam at IAS (the last meet of the summer season) then they were competing as their actual age all season, so I fail to see what the problem is with that. As for a kid turning 9 on the day of IAS, whatever, the records she set were during the season while she was actually 8. |
Anonymous
Not PP. I think the days or weeks away didn't just reference IAS. It meant CLC which is a few weeks from the end of the season. |
Anonymous
I am the PP you quoted. I don’t object to club swimmers swimming, as long as they get that it’s a team rec sport and entirely different from club swimming. But the PP I quoted seemed to be saying that the advantage that club swimmers have somehow justifies changing the age when the two things are completely separate. The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others. I have a kid with a late July birthday, he has an advantage in Summer Swim, a disadvantage in his favorite sport which has a August 1 cut off, a bigger disadvantage in lacrosse where they play by age and lots of kids are redshirted, and unclear status in soccer right now because the ages seem to be changing. It just is what it is. But I don’t go demanding that the rules change in any of those sports. Because I am not a poor sport. |
Anonymous
DP - I've seen the bolded argument made so many times and I think it's overblown. Is club swim mostly more intense than summer swim? Yes, absolutely. But the best clubs find ways to make practices fun, build a sense of community, and develop supportive teammates. Not all clubs foster an insanely cut-throat, in it for myself mentality. On our summer team at least, it's usually the year-round swimmers who are the best teammates, in the truest sense of the word. But to that point, here's another rule I think MCSL should have: all kids should participate in a minimum of two practices per week, regardless of club commitments. It's not much of a team when the ringers come in on Saturdays only and clean up. Or, it leads to two very different "teams" within the larger team. That's not much fun, either. |
Anonymous
+1. Summer swim is what? Six weeks? Are we really going to kick freshly minted 9-year olds out of their age groups and relays in mid July and make them start swimming 50s with kids who are nearly two full years older? How is that fair? I have no problem with the age up rule in club swim. Everyone is going to have a down period as they have birthdays, no one gets singled out. But for summer swim you are really penalizing the summer birthday kids. These kids get penalized enough. June 1 is fine. |
Anonymous
I really don’t care about the age up issue, but the people that insist the rule remain age on June 1st are no different than the people arguing it should be age on August 1st. The only difference is which group of kids is being disadvantaged. It’s 2 sides of the same coin. |
Anonymous
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Good point about most club swimmers being familiar with aging up during a season.
But for the 6 weeks of summer swim most are not club swimmers so just pick a date on the calendar. I myself would pick a date after the season ends but no big deal. |
Anonymous
Or just have them swim 50s the whole season so they’re ready when they age up. They’re 9 and competing against 5-8 year olds. Literally against kids 3-4 years younger than they are, so your argument that they swim against kids nearly 2 years older is not that shocking. When the 8u winner of all stars is 9 and not 8 means that they’re not 8u. Insert other top of the age group switch here. But I agree that summer birthday kids generally have a bad deal with school unless they’re red shirted. Ultimately, life is unfair, none of it really matters in the long run.  I’m annoyed that I entered this silly argument
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Anonymous
Except for the fact that you’d have actual 8 year olds being forced to compete their entire seasons as 9 year olds. They swim different events. It matters. |