Divisionals really shows why the unfair birthday rule matters
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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. |
Anonymous
This is untrue. Meet age is age as of first day. Please spare a thought for your pool automation team and coaches who have to make lineups and seed your meets. |
Anonymous
Rays hinted that a certain Olympic trial swimmer can/may return next year to swim. I hope she’s kidding. |
Anonymous
Our team revels in it and celebrates our assistant coaches who swim with the rest of the team. It's nostalgic and fun, like an older sibling who still has a good time being with you. These kids are successful in college, and swimming with them is exciting and even inspiring for the younger kids. |
Anonymous
| The annual late July complaint post, right on cue. |
Anonymous
Why not? |