Summer swim kids swimming in “wrong” age group

[Anonymous]

This is the weirdest 22 page thread. Summer swim across the country has the same cut off (my summer birthday children have experienced it in multiple states). USA Swimming has a rolling birth date cut off. Hockey, baseball, basketball…they all have cut offs. Read Malcom Gladwell’s book on outliers - he explains this very well. I don’t think there is any point to trying to change it. Everything has some arbitrary cut off.

[Anonymous]

The official rules from the 1950s and 1960s show the June 1 cutoff. Does anyone have evidence it was different from 2004-2011 or is this all heresy ? The story of team administrators changing it to suit their own kid's birthday is especially dubious since the rule is in line with the league's original rule as well as that of pretty much all other major summer swim leagues.

[Anonymous]

I swam in the NVSL in the 1970s and 1980s. Both my brother and his best friend had very "bad" NVSL birthdays - June and July. My early August friend had the "best" birthday.

So, somewhere after the 1960s, it was not a June 1 cutoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the weirdest 22 page thread. Summer swim across the country has the same cut off (my summer birthday children have experienced it in multiple states). USA Swimming has a rolling birth date cut off. Hockey, baseball, basketball…they all have cut offs. Read Malcom Gladwell’s book on outliers - he explains this very well. I don’t think there is any point to trying to change it. Everything has some arbitrary cut off.

Baseball is played in the spring … before summer swim … and has a cutoff several months after June 1 … and they changed their cutoff in recent years … so it doesn’t support your argument … at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The official rules from the 1950s and 1960s show the June 1 cutoff. Does anyone have evidence it was different from 2004-2011 or is this all heresy ? The story of team administrators changing it to suit their own kid's birthday is especially dubious since the rule is in line with the league's original rule as well as that of pretty much all other major summer swim leagues.

I just asked an old timer on our team about this out of curiosity. They were like oh yea it was changed to June 1. For as long as they could remember you aged up in your birthday. She collaborated that this reform as well as as changing the 8&u relays happ me at the same time. It was pushed through by some active NVSL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the weirdest 22 page thread. Summer swim across the country has the same cut off (my summer birthday children have experienced it in multiple states). USA Swimming has a rolling birth date cut off. Hockey, baseball, basketball…they all have cut offs. Read Malcom Gladwell’s book on outliers - he explains this very well. I don’t think there is any point to trying to change it. Everything has some arbitrary cut off.

Baseball is played in the spring … before summer swim … and has a cutoff several months after June 1 … and they changed their cutoff in recent years … so it doesn’t support your argument … at all.

Every sport has a cutoff off SOME date. Those born a little after that date always have an advantage. Right now it is June 1. If you make it August 1, it will just shift who has the advantage/disadvantage. Right now, NVSL is in line with their initial rules as well as all major summer leagues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The official rules from the 1950s and 1960s show the June 1 cutoff. Does anyone have evidence it was different from 2004-2011 or is this all heresy ? The story of team administrators changing it to suit their own kid's birthday is especially dubious since the rule is in line with the league's original rule as well as that of pretty much all other major summer swim leagues.

You keep saying this as though everyone is making it up, but multiple people on this thread have mentioned their kids participating during that time frame and June 1 was not the cutoff. Conversely, no one has stepped forward to say my kid swam in NVSL during that time frame and it was still using June 1 as a cutoff during those years. Most people don’t have a collection of the NVSL rule books sitting around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The official rules from the 1950s and 1960s show the June 1 cutoff. Does anyone have evidence it was different from 2004-2011 or is this all heresy ? The story of team administrators changing it to suit their own kid's birthday is especially dubious since the rule is in line with the league's original rule as well as that of pretty much all other major summer swim leagues.

I just asked an old timer on our team about this out of curiosity. They were like oh yea it was changed to June 1. For as long as they could remember you aged up in your birthday. She collaborated that this reform as well as as changing the 8&u relays happ me at the same time. It was pushed through by some active NVSL.

This all sounds like pool gossip. The NVSL website has the rules from 1965 and 1956 posted. In them the rule is June 1. All other major summer leagues in this area (and the few I checked around the country - including the largest Atlanta Swim Association) use a May/June cutoff. Having them age up on their birthday must have made NVSL an outlier and frankly seems like bad practice. It makes sense for year round swimming since that is after all year-round. Every year you will be among the oldest at some meets and the youngest at some other meets so it evens out.

[Anonymous]

The “outliers” if there are any are the kids making 9/10 All Stars as 9 year olds swimming against 11 year olds, not the 11 year olds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the basic problem when it comes down to it is that there is a 24 month window for the 9-10, 11-12 and 13-14 groups. If the cutoff was sep 1 then you'd have "8" year olds in the 9-10 group. Right now, just like in ANY OTHER youth league you have the kids at the older end and yes, this means that a kid who has a july 1 birthday (and will turn 11 then) will be swimming the season as 9-10 and be 22 months older than a kid who turned 9 on may 1. There is no answer to fix this problem EXCEPT to make the groups smaller in age (12 month window instead of 24) but then things would take forever to run (unless you combined the heats, but then you'd have to figure out who "won" from the 9 year old sets later). And then you'll still have some kids 11 months older than others in their bracket. Taken to extremes you could have a separate category for every season or every month even with separate records/times for each but hopefully everyone thinks that is absurd.

No, it’s not like any other youth league. That’s bc club swim cuts it off whatever your age is the first day of a meet. It’s is not as if club swim - even ymca USA swimming- follows these rules for summer or any other time.

But is that mostly because club swim lasts from October - May ( 8 months ) vs summer swim being 5 weeks (6 for those who make divisionals and 7 for those who make all stars?) so then you'd either have some VERY OLD kids competing (sep 1 'swimming age' by the time it gets to may) vs very YOUNG kids competing (may 1 'swimming age' and a october meet). I guess you could split the difference and have it just be january 1 or whatever.

Wrong. Club swim goes through the first week or so in August (age group zones, isca summer meet, ncsa fl meet, senior zones). Then it resumes anywhere from late august to early sept. Meaning - club swim has a 3-4 week break and that’s it - and that’s for only some teams. Some keep on going, thru August.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the weirdest 22 page thread. Summer swim across the country has the same cut off (my summer birthday children have experienced it in multiple states). USA Swimming has a rolling birth date cut off. Hockey, baseball, basketball…they all have cut offs. Read Malcom Gladwell’s book on outliers - he explains this very well. I don’t think there is any point to trying to change it. Everything has some arbitrary cut off.

Baseball is played in the spring … before summer swim … and has a cutoff several months after June 1 … and they changed their cutoff in recent years … so it doesn’t support your argument … at all.

Swim is also very different from team sports. Sure, you can say summer swim is a “team” sport but it is not a team sport in the way hockey or basketball are where the kids need to play together and develop some chemistry in order to be successful as a team. You don’t need cohesion with relays, plug in the fastest swimmers and keep it moving, and everything else is individual times. Kids should just age up on their birthday like they do in club swim. You can try and pretend that it is all about the team in summer swim but what are people most obsessed with….individual all-stars, so spare me the whole “but the team” argument.

[Anonymous]

Here’s evidence it changed in 2011:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=Jeff&lname=Gerber&sid=18660&stid=2

Otherwise how could he be 9 two years in a row?


Here’s evidence the cut off wasn’t June 1 going back to at least 2003:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=&lname=Hashemi&sid=6497&stid=1

Otherwise why would his age change in the middle of July?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s evidence it changed in 2011:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=Jeff&lname=Gerber&sid=18660&stid=2

Otherwise how could he be 9 two years in a row?


Here’s evidence the cut off wasn’t June 1 going back to at least 2003:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=&lname=Hashemi&sid=6497&stid=1

Otherwise why would his age change in the middle of July?

What’s really weird is he went from a 14 year old on June 28, 2008 to being 13 on July 5 ,2008

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s evidence it changed in 2011:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=Jeff&lname=Gerber&sid=18660&stid=2

Otherwise how could he be 9 two years in a row?


Here’s evidence the cut off wasn’t June 1 going back to at least 2003:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=&lname=Hashemi&sid=6497&stid=1

Otherwise why would his age change in the middle of July?

You may need to seek professional help.
You are really hung up on this.
Each kid will compete in each 24 month bracket for 24 months.
There is a cutoff. The cutoff is the same (within 30 days) for all summer swim leagues in the DC Area.
I am sorry you feel that your dear child had to compete against someokne whose birthday was in June July or Auguat...but to qhjne for 23 pages? Really...is this about your child or is this about YOU? Let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s evidence it changed in 2011:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=Jeff&lname=Gerber&sid=18660&stid=2

Otherwise how could he be 9 two years in a row?


Here’s evidence the cut off wasn’t June 1 going back to at least 2003:

https://www.mynvsl.com/leaders?post=2&fname=&lname=Hashemi&sid=6497&stid=1

Otherwise why would his age change in the middle of July?

What’s really weird is he went from a 14 year old on June 28, 2008 to being 13 on July 5 ,2008

Probably an admin error by someone who wanted to return to the June 1 standard and erase all evidence that any other standard was ever in place.