ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

It is not for me to say this is a losing argument.

But US Soccer did say this is a lost argument.

It's over but for the victory lap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why RAE keeps being brought up on a thread about BY and SY?

Why?

Because BY parents argue SY is stupid and RAE doesn’t exist…their kid is just talented and the August/ Dec birthdays are not.

SY parents arguing their kid struggles against older players and would be great to have their kid not be the youngest finally.

Irrelevant to the actual discussion..just more of parents don’t want to believe their kid was given an advantage or vice versa - easier to believe your kid has some sort of natural talent.

Your logic doesn't make sense.

Being in 7th or 8th grade has nothing to do with RAE.

Under both BY and the proposed SY there's a 1 year eligibility window.

With BY, RAE disadvantages Dec birthdays the most

With SY, RAE disadvantages July birthdays the most

Either way the same amount of players are disadvantaged.

RAE will not be the same in a switch to SY, it will be reduced in the short term.

Don't forget that the process of switching will have a leveling effect so technically going from BY to SY will reduce RAE for a range of players already started their soccer career. Just spit balling but say for kids around U12 - U15, spending the early parts of the years in BY and later in SY could very well balance the RAE effects to effectively eliminate it.

Again RAE affects the same amount of kids in BY as it does in SY. The only difference is a different group is affected

Stop trying to spin the truth. Simply put RAE by itself is not the justification for switching from BY to SY that you think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

It is not for me to say this is a losing argument.

But US Soccer did say this is a lost argument.

It's over but for the victory lap.

US Soccer said in 2026 leagues are free to implement SY if they want to.

No specific guidance was provided.

This is not a victory lap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why RAE keeps being brought up on a thread about BY and SY?

Why?

Because BY parents argue SY is stupid and RAE doesn’t exist…their kid is just talented and the August/ Dec birthdays are not.

SY parents arguing their kid struggles against older players and would be great to have their kid not be the youngest finally.

Irrelevant to the actual discussion..just more of parents don’t want to believe their kid was given an advantage or vice versa - easier to believe your kid has some sort of natural talent.

Your logic doesn't make sense.

Being in 7th or 8th grade has nothing to do with RAE.

Under both BY and the proposed SY there's a 1 year eligibility window.

With BY, RAE disadvantages Dec birthdays the most

With SY, RAE disadvantages July birthdays the most

Either way the same amount of players are disadvantaged.

RAE will not be the same in a switch to SY, it will be reduced in the short term.

Don't forget that the process of switching will have a leveling effect so technically going from BY to SY will reduce RAE for a range of players already started their soccer career. Just spit balling but say for kids around U12 - U15, spending the early parts of the years in BY and later in SY could very well balance the RAE effects to effectively eliminate it.

Again RAE affects the same amount of kids in BY as it does in SY. The only difference is a different group is affected

Stop trying to spin the truth. Simply put RAE by itself is not the justification for switching from BY to SY that you think it is.

Ooooh. A little miss there by the SY folks. You should know that just the mention of RAE creates another 50 pages of arguments. Lets stick together here SY people. We're almost to the finish line. RAE is the same, that is NOT the argument. Lets put that one to bed and stick with some of our stronger stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why RAE keeps being brought up on a thread about BY and SY?

Why?

Because BY parents argue SY is stupid and RAE doesn’t exist…their kid is just talented and the August/ Dec birthdays are not.

SY parents arguing their kid struggles against older players and would be great to have their kid not be the youngest finally.

Irrelevant to the actual discussion..just more of parents don’t want to believe their kid was given an advantage or vice versa - easier to believe your kid has some sort of natural talent.

Your logic doesn't make sense.

Being in 7th or 8th grade has nothing to do with RAE.

Under both BY and the proposed SY there's a 1 year eligibility window.

With BY, RAE disadvantages Dec birthdays the most

With SY, RAE disadvantages July birthdays the most

Either way the same amount of players are disadvantaged.

RAE will not be the same in a switch to SY, it will be reduced in the short term.

Don't forget that the process of switching will have a leveling effect so technically going from BY to SY will reduce RAE for a range of players already started their soccer career. Just spit balling but say for kids around U12 - U15, spending the early parts of the years in BY and later in SY could very well balance the RAE effects to effectively eliminate it.

Again RAE affects the same amount of kids in BY as it does in SY. The only difference is a different group is affected

Stop trying to spin the truth. Simply put RAE by itself is not the justification for switching from BY to SY that you think it is.

Not a spin, RAE effects, positive and negative, are reduced in the short term for kids already in the playing at least a few years. Winners becoming losers and losers becoming winners making for kids having reduced RAE over their careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

It is not for me to say this is a losing argument.

But US Soccer did say this is a lost argument.

It's over but for the victory lap.

US Soccer said in 2026 leagues are free to implement SY if they want to.

No specific guidance was provided.

This is not a victory lap.

Noooooot yet. But just sit tight. You're not gonna like what's behind door number 2 buddy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why RAE keeps being brought up on a thread about BY and SY?

Why?

Because BY parents argue SY is stupid and RAE doesn’t exist…their kid is just talented and the August/ Dec birthdays are not.

SY parents arguing their kid struggles against older players and would be great to have their kid not be the youngest finally.

Irrelevant to the actual discussion..just more of parents don’t want to believe their kid was given an advantage or vice versa - easier to believe your kid has some sort of natural talent.

Your logic doesn't make sense.

Being in 7th or 8th grade has nothing to do with RAE.

Under both BY and the proposed SY there's a 1 year eligibility window.

With BY, RAE disadvantages Dec birthdays the most

With SY, RAE disadvantages July birthdays the most

Either way the same amount of players are disadvantaged.

RAE will not be the same in a switch to SY, it will be reduced in the short term.

Don't forget that the process of switching will have a leveling effect so technically going from BY to SY will reduce RAE for a range of players already started their soccer career. Just spit balling but say for kids around U12 - U15, spending the early parts of the years in BY and later in SY could very well balance the RAE effects to effectively eliminate it.

Again RAE affects the same amount of kids in BY as it does in SY. The only difference is a different group is affected

Stop trying to spin the truth. Simply put RAE by itself is not the justification for switching from BY to SY that you think it is.

Not a spin, RAE effects, positive and negative, are reduced in the short term for kids already in the playing at least a few years. Winners becoming losers and losers becoming winners making for kids having reduced RAE over their careers.

You're killing us here. Back away slowly from the RAE stuff. Not saying your wrong but you're confusing the BY crowd and we're losing ground.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

It is not for me to say this is a losing argument.

But US Soccer did say this is a lost argument.

It's over but for the victory lap.

US Soccer said in 2026 leagues are free to implement SY if they want to.

No specific guidance was provided.

This is not a victory lap.

It says "but for the victory lap."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why RAE keeps being brought up on a thread about BY and SY?

Why?

Because BY parents argue SY is stupid and RAE doesn’t exist…their kid is just talented and the August/ Dec birthdays are not.

SY parents arguing their kid struggles against older players and would be great to have their kid not be the youngest finally.

Irrelevant to the actual discussion..just more of parents don’t want to believe their kid was given an advantage or vice versa - easier to believe your kid has some sort of natural talent.

Your logic doesn't make sense.

Being in 7th or 8th grade has nothing to do with RAE.

Under both BY and the proposed SY there's a 1 year eligibility window.

With BY, RAE disadvantages Dec birthdays the most

With SY, RAE disadvantages July birthdays the most

Either way the same amount of players are disadvantaged.

RAE will not be the same in a switch to SY, it will be reduced in the short term.

Don't forget that the process of switching will have a leveling effect so technically going from BY to SY will reduce RAE for a range of players already started their soccer career. Just spit balling but say for kids around U12 - U15, spending the early parts of the years in BY and later in SY could very well balance the RAE effects to effectively eliminate it.

Again RAE affects the same amount of kids in BY as it does in SY. The only difference is a different group is affected

Stop trying to spin the truth. Simply put RAE by itself is not the justification for switching from BY to SY that you think it is.

I really don’t think anyone is saying that RAE is a reason to switch. RAE exists in both systems, it just benefits / hurts different groups. Eliminating trapped players and having kids compete against same grade (their competition for academics, social issues, etc.) are the reasons for SY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

It is not for me to say this is a losing argument.

But US Soccer did say this is a lost argument.

It's over but for the victory lap.

US Soccer said in 2026 leagues are free to implement SY if they want to.

No specific guidance was provided.

This is not a victory lap.

US Soccer basically admitted that in the face of scrutiny they could no longer maintain BY for the masses with a straight face. So they told the youth national team coaches and MLS that the best they could do is give everyone freedom to go their own way. They said guidance is coming, which will presumably include the arguments presented for both BY and SY for the individual leagues to consider.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

So, when they had the July 31-August 1 cutoff for 40 years...it slipped into graduation year and it was really confusing, so nobody could figure it out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

So rich private boarding schools could become the American equivalent of Ajax academy with a decent education? Wouldn't US Soccer absolutely LOVE if this happened?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why RAE keeps being brought up on a thread about BY and SY?

Why?

Because BY parents argue SY is stupid and RAE doesn’t exist…their kid is just talented and the August/ Dec birthdays are not.

SY parents arguing their kid struggles against older players and would be great to have their kid not be the youngest finally.

Irrelevant to the actual discussion..just more of parents don’t want to believe their kid was given an advantage or vice versa - easier to believe your kid has some sort of natural talent.

Your logic doesn't make sense.

Being in 7th or 8th grade has nothing to do with RAE.

Under both BY and the proposed SY there's a 1 year eligibility window.

With BY, RAE disadvantages Dec birthdays the most

With SY, RAE disadvantages July birthdays the most

Either way the same amount of players are disadvantaged.

RAE will not be the same in a switch to SY, it will be reduced in the short term.

Don't forget that the process of switching will have a leveling effect so technically going from BY to SY will reduce RAE for a range of players already started their soccer career. Just spit balling but say for kids around U12 - U15, spending the early parts of the years in BY and later in SY could very well balance the RAE effects to effectively eliminate it.

Again RAE affects the same amount of kids in BY as it does in SY. The only difference is a different group is affected

Stop trying to spin the truth. Simply put RAE by itself is not the justification for switching from BY to SY that you think it is.

Not a spin, RAE effects, positive and negative, are reduced in the short term for kids already in the playing at least a few years. Winners becoming losers and losers becoming winners making for kids having reduced RAE over their careers.

You're killing us here. Back away slowly from the RAE stuff. Not saying your wrong but you're confusing the BY crowd and we're losing ground.

LOL, I am not trying to convince anybody of anything, the SY v BY as a mandate argument is over, no mandate.

But I will be saying what I said above the first time some parent uses the switch to SY as an excuse for why their Q1 kid struggles and how SY ruined all of youth soccer.