Divisionals really shows why the unfair birthday rule matters
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Anonymous
I really don't understand any of these arguments. the records are, e.g. 9-10 boys. Whether or not someone changes age group during the season has nothing to do with the records. Planning heats and relay teams? At least on our team, the relays tend to change some from week to week b/c one kid bumps another kid on the ladder, or one kid is sick or out of town etc. I don't know what kind of planning this is going to mess up. Admittedly a kid who goes from swimming 25s to swimming 50s is probably going to have a rough end of the season, as do many newly 9 year olds... |
Anonymous
And probably older than 40 percent of the kids in the 9-10 age group. Obviously a strong swimmer. Strong swimmers do when regardless. It’s the kids whose parents think they are good but really aren’t that get hurt by the “bad” swim birthdays. And then you have the kids who are marginal but look good only when they are older than everyone else because they have “good” swim birthdays. |
Anonymous
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You can see the original rule book here:
https://www.mynvsl.com/documents?folder_id=19998 It was June first in the original rules. The rule was changed for a short period of time and then changed back because it was an administrative nightmare. |
Anonymous
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The cutoff should be August 4.
Though in few years I can see that is should change to June 21. |
Anonymous
Will they? It doesn’t really matter where you make the cut off. |
Anonymous
Name the team or at least division. This isn’t an issue in our division 12 team. |
Anonymous
| A cut off of August 1, may have kids swimming under the age for part of the season. There is no perfect solution. |
Anonymous
Which is exactly how little league baseball works btw |
Anonymous
| Someone is always going to be unhappy. |
Anonymous
Haha, I like it! |
Anonymous
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You can't have kids age up on their birthdays because the season is too short and it would be chaos for teams in terms of figuring out who would swim in which relays and which events. It also does suck for a kid to go from swimming 25 or 50 (and practicing for that) and then swimming 50 or 100 midseason specifically because the short season means they won't have a chance to acclimate. This is different from club swimming where the season is long and it's easier to ease into a new distance and teams (and swimmers) have more time to prepare.
The people demanding they cutoff be changed to August 1 or whatever are being especially petty because this would not change the fact that kids with certain birthdays would be advantaged. I have a kid with a August 5 birthday. She will be just days shy of her 9th birthday when she's competing against 7 year olds. This is "unfair" to the 7 year olds and would still be "unfair" if the cutoff was August 1st. On the other hand she spent an extra year on pre-team when the other kids in her grade aged into the 7-8 and that was a little sad for her. She's also regularly the smallest in her grade and that can be tough in other sports where the cutoffs don't benefit her. Oh well that is life. Also it is just summer swim. It really does not matter that much and my kids have had years where they did great and that was fun and they also had years where they were consistently the slowest in their age group and they still had fun because they were going to meets with their friends and spending days in the pool and there was the banquet and Fridays and that's really the best part anyway. Some of you are way to fixated on like the one or two times your kid lost to a child "swimming down" by one month. Let it go. Teach your kid that sometimes that's how it works. |
Anonymous
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Change the names of the divisions from 9-10 year olds to “juniors” or whatever, and then define “juniors” as those born between xx/yy and xx/yy. Then no one will have anything to complain about. It’s the fact that an 11 year old is swimming in a so-called 10u group that is absolutely wrecking some people’s brains. Change the name. It’s not an 10u group. It’s a 6/2/2013-6/1/2015 birthday group.
People complain less about sub optimal swim birthdays in club swim, truly. And it’s partially because by the time their swim times actually mean anything, they are 15 and classified as a “senior”, so everyone’s on the same playing field. I have a club swimmer who ages up before a big annual travel meet and he doesn’t mope about it, he just goes for the next age group cuts. And it might blow your mind that there are 12, 13, and 14 year olds swimming in senior meets next to 22 year olds, and no one is clutching their pearls about how unfair it is that little Susie, who just finished 7th grade, had to compete for a finals spot against a college swimmer. But I understand that a fair playing field is important to rec summer swim, so I think renaming groups and defining each group as a 2 year age group makes the most sense. It’s not fair for the kids who happen to be at top of the bday heap to get such vitriol. They are in the correct age group, it’s just labeled incorrectly. |
Anonymous
| Eh, my club swimmer has a Jan 31 birthday. It sucks but is what it is. Makes them work harder to get the next age group’s cuts early, and won’t matter anymore once they turn 15. |
Anonymous
Correct, they would not be able to swim their senior year as age is based on age on June 1 and not tied to school year. Although NVSL dive did change their policy that you could still dive at 19 if you had just completed HS. |
Anonymous
| College swimmers coming back to swim rec league swimming is weird and kind of pathetic. |