ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

What do you all think of this? The more I think about it, ODP lost ground to the elite leagues because of the change to BY. Now, if we see a switch largely back to SY, ODP might see an upswing again because it'll probably remain one of the few BY options where kids can compete across a uniform age range?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you all think of this? The more I think about it, ODP lost ground to the elite leagues because of the change to BY. Now, if we see a switch largely back to SY, ODP might see an upswing again because it'll probably remain one of the few BY options where kids can compete across a uniform age range?

I think ODP is dead because it doesn't have the cache it used to.

But yes I've heard that ODP has 2x programs that are 6 months apart which makes the RAE people happy + let's the ODP program work for more players.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the last few posts just highlight the fact that there is no perfect system, and someone is going to be, or feel, disadvantaged. We will see what happens soon enough.

With SY+60 you eliminate all trapped players + would not allow playing down. Which according to what I've read from SY people is a good thing.

Where you would see complaints is from states or school districts that started 9/1 about states or districts that started 8/1. This is because nobody on a 9/1 team would be born before 9/1. (Unless someone moved into the district from an 8/1 district). While on the 8/1 team you'd likely have several close to 8/1 players rostered. Basically SY+60 gives up 2 months of RAE to makes everything work to accommodate different district start dates.

Still not under consideration and still weaker than just going with 7/1.

9/1 is getting more air play than 8/1, so even 10/1 more likely than 8/1.

Instead if digging your heels in on a specific date cutoff. At least think about why SY+60 makes a lot of sense.

Try to poke holes in it. (You won't be able to. Ive tried)

With a single date cutoff someone is always going to be upset.

It makes sense if the intention to have GY (and give the MOST RAE advantage to summer birthdays -- even more than the 12-month version, since you'll have some kids more than 14 months older than the youngest player now. Yes, they MAY be in the same grade but I can't wait for the parents to complain about the size/growth differences! Also, you basically MOST disadvantage all the Q2 kids).

SY+60 specifically protects against GY nonsense and doesn't allow it.

Yes SY+60 does create a 14 month eligibility window that some school districts can exploit. But how else are you going to make SY work across a range of different school district start dates in a single league? No matter what hard date you choose someone will get upset if you're trying to align to a grade in school.

Also the more I think about it SY+60 does not create a 14 month eligibility window for a specific district. If a district started 8/1 they would be in the +60. Each grade would only be 12 months of eligibility because you can't play down with the lower grade. (You need proof of enrollment in a grade)

Where you would see a 14 month disparity is at national events where different state teams with different school start dates play each other.

Put in ECNL terms the regional leagues would all likely have similar school start dates. This would mean a 12 month eligibility window with CY+60

Those regional/national tournaments you note are big deals, I mean, maybe deal-breakers.

2 months of RAE in exchange for completely getting rid of trapped players and not allowing players to play down a grade in school.

Seems like a good trade.

Until that national champion team has all/most summertime and Q3 birthdays.

Kind of agree, Kind of don't agree.

When school districts start is random. Nobody is moving to a district based on its start date for an advantage in youth soccer. Also I don't think 2 months of RAE is that big of a deal for the winners or loses of the birthdate lottery.

The benefits of SY+60 outweigh 2 months of RAE.

It would be nice to go to a tournament and games are 100% players in a single grade.

I could also see BY league clubs participating in SY+60 tournaments because all you'd need to do as a club is keep track of players grade in school for teams.

It's not random. It's state by state. You'll favor the states with the earliest start dates. And I'm not sure it'll be not be nice to attend tournaments if your state is later -- especially around certain ages where puberty hits -- and you play teams with kids who sure may be only a few months BUT look/appear years older (It's a big complaint on the lacrosse forums -- where concerns about cheating, apparently because of a GY focus, seems to be a problem)

You have 2 options...

1. Get all the school districts in America to agree to a single school start date.

2. Do something like SY+60 which accommodates multiple start dates within a specific range.

If you don't do #1 or #2 SY will always have a group that complains + aren't happy.

You'll never get 1. With 2, you get parents of the youngest kids still complaining, perhaps more so -- unless there's a viable BY option. And BY probably is the best way to do 12-month age group tournaments nationwide.

I agree that BY is easier for tournaments nationwide.

But I'd be OK with SY+60 tournaments.

In both cases it's easy to define who plays on which team. With BY its what year were you born. With SY+60 it's what grade are you in school.

The SY+90 in lacrosse seems to be more of "tournament" rule where grad year is the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the last few posts just highlight the fact that there is no perfect system, and someone is going to be, or feel, disadvantaged. We will see what happens soon enough.

With SY+60 you eliminate all trapped players + would not allow playing down. Which according to what I've read from SY people is a good thing.

Where you would see complaints is from states or school districts that started 9/1 about states or districts that started 8/1. This is because nobody on a 9/1 team would be born before 9/1. (Unless someone moved into the district from an 8/1 district). While on the 8/1 team you'd likely have several close to 8/1 players rostered. Basically SY+60 gives up 2 months of RAE to makes everything work to accommodate different district start dates.

Still not under consideration and still weaker than just going with 7/1.

9/1 is getting more air play than 8/1, so even 10/1 more likely than 8/1.

Instead if digging your heels in on a specific date cutoff. At least think about why SY+60 makes a lot of sense.

Try to poke holes in it. (You won't be able to. Ive tried)

With a single date cutoff someone is always going to be upset.

SY+30 vs SY-30 vs SY+60 vs SY+90, you're always going all 6 min abs on this when 7 min is the number.

The biggest hole is, and I am trying to be respectful because it seems you are a kid, other than nobody has national paperwork for kids grades, teams don't want to collect and people will cheat, is that everyone making the calls is on record saying they don't want complexity, they want straight dates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you all think of this? The more I think about it, ODP lost ground to the elite leagues because of the change to BY. Now, if we see a switch largely back to SY, ODP might see an upswing again because it'll probably remain one of the few BY options where kids can compete across a uniform age range?

I think ODP is dead because it doesn't have the cache it used to.

But yes I've heard that ODP has 2x programs that are 6 months apart which makes the RAE people happy + let's the ODP program work for more players.

I think ODP is dead vs. the elite leagues is true for some states/regions, but in others they have some amazing state teams, especially out west, where the soccer participation depth likely makes more possible.

[Anonymous]

9/1 to 7/31 and grade year for August is better than 9/1 to 8/31 + 60.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the last few posts just highlight the fact that there is no perfect system, and someone is going to be, or feel, disadvantaged. We will see what happens soon enough.

With SY+60 you eliminate all trapped players + would not allow playing down. Which according to what I've read from SY people is a good thing.

Where you would see complaints is from states or school districts that started 9/1 about states or districts that started 8/1. This is because nobody on a 9/1 team would be born before 9/1. (Unless someone moved into the district from an 8/1 district). While on the 8/1 team you'd likely have several close to 8/1 players rostered. Basically SY+60 gives up 2 months of RAE to makes everything work to accommodate different district start dates.

Still not under consideration and still weaker than just going with 7/1.

9/1 is getting more air play than 8/1, so even 10/1 more likely than 8/1.

Instead if digging your heels in on a specific date cutoff. At least think about why SY+60 makes a lot of sense.

Try to poke holes in it. (You won't be able to. Ive tried)

With a single date cutoff someone is always going to be upset.

SY+30 vs SY-30 vs SY+60 vs SY+90, you're always going all 6 min abs on this when 7 min is the number.

The biggest hole is, and I am trying to be respectful because it seems you are a kid, other than nobody has national paperwork for kids grades, teams don't want to collect and people will cheat, is that everyone making the calls is on record saying they don't want complexity, they want straight dates.

SY + 60 indeed makes a lot of sense, though my own Aug kid would become the youngest among the 14 month span. I believe he can compete with those 14 months olds and benefit himself with that. I don’t believe most Americans cannot handle this little complexity of math..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9/1 to 7/31 and grade year for August is better than 9/1 to 8/31 + 60.

Hmmm... Trying to decifer this one.

1st I can already see that dates only won't stop players from playing down on lower grade teams.

I don't understand the GY comment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the last few posts just highlight the fact that there is no perfect system, and someone is going to be, or feel, disadvantaged. We will see what happens soon enough.

With SY+60 you eliminate all trapped players + would not allow playing down. Which according to what I've read from SY people is a good thing.

Where you would see complaints is from states or school districts that started 9/1 about states or districts that started 8/1. This is because nobody on a 9/1 team would be born before 9/1. (Unless someone moved into the district from an 8/1 district). While on the 8/1 team you'd likely have several close to 8/1 players rostered. Basically SY+60 gives up 2 months of RAE to makes everything work to accommodate different district start dates.

Still not under consideration and still weaker than just going with 7/1.

9/1 is getting more air play than 8/1, so even 10/1 more likely than 8/1.

Instead if digging your heels in on a specific date cutoff. At least think about why SY+60 makes a lot of sense.

Try to poke holes in it. (You won't be able to. Ive tried)

With a single date cutoff someone is always going to be upset.

SY+30 vs SY-30 vs SY+60 vs SY+90, you're always going all 6 min abs on this when 7 min is the number.

The biggest hole is, and I am trying to be respectful because it seems you are a kid, other than nobody has national paperwork for kids grades, teams don't want to collect and people will cheat, is that everyone making the calls is on record saying they don't want complexity, they want straight dates.

SY + 60 indeed makes a lot of sense, though my own Aug kid would become the youngest among the 14 month span. I believe he can compete with those 14 months olds and benefit himself with that. I don’t believe most Americans cannot handle this little complexity of math..

Your kid being the oldest or youngest on the team would depend on the school district start date under SY+60.

If the school district started on 9/1 they'd be the youngest

If the school district started on 8/1 they'd be the oldest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9/1 to 7/31 and grade year for August is better than 9/1 to 8/31 + 60.

Hmmm... Trying to decifer this one.

1st I can already see that dates only won't stop players from playing down on lower grade teams.

I don't understand the GY comment

School Year with an age range of 9/1 to 7/31. August Birthdays get sorted by grade. It’s been talked about previously on this thread. No one is more than 12 months older than anyone. Trapped players all but eliminated for kids that meet the birthday date ranges for each state.

But, for better or worse, the soccer leagues will likely go with a flat 9/1 to 8/31 (except those that remain BY).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the last few posts just highlight the fact that there is no perfect system, and someone is going to be, or feel, disadvantaged. We will see what happens soon enough.

With SY+60 you eliminate all trapped players + would not allow playing down. Which according to what I've read from SY people is a good thing.

Where you would see complaints is from states or school districts that started 9/1 about states or districts that started 8/1. This is because nobody on a 9/1 team would be born before 9/1. (Unless someone moved into the district from an 8/1 district). While on the 8/1 team you'd likely have several close to 8/1 players rostered. Basically SY+60 gives up 2 months of RAE to makes everything work to accommodate different district start dates.

Still not under consideration and still weaker than just going with 7/1.

9/1 is getting more air play than 8/1, so even 10/1 more likely than 8/1.

Instead if digging your heels in on a specific date cutoff. At least think about why SY+60 makes a lot of sense.

Try to poke holes in it. (You won't be able to. Ive tried)

With a single date cutoff someone is always going to be upset.

It makes sense if the intention to have GY (and give the MOST RAE advantage to summer birthdays -- even more than the 12-month version, since you'll have some kids more than 14 months older than the youngest player now. Yes, they MAY be in the same grade but I can't wait for the parents to complain about the size/growth differences! Also, you basically MOST disadvantage all the Q2 kids).

This is the +60 flaw (besides just being stupid)—you make it even harder for the youngest kids in the age bracket to compete. Hard enough to compete with kids up to a year older, now you make them compete with kids up to 14 months older. And the kids who will have to deal with this are least prepared to do so because, under the BY system they've always played in, they’ve always being the oldest kids on the team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9/1 to 7/31 and grade year for August is better than 9/1 to 8/31 + 60.

Hmmm... Trying to decifer this one.

1st I can already see that dates only won't stop players from playing down on lower grade teams.

I don't understand the GY comment

School Year with an age range of 9/1 to 7/31. August Birthdays get sorted by grade. It’s been talked about previously on this thread. No one is more than 12 months older than anyone. Trapped players all but eliminated for kids that meet the birthday date ranges for each state.

But, for better or worse, the soccer leagues will likely go with a flat 9/1 to 8/31 (except those that remain BY).

This is almost the same thing as SY+60

The almost part is your GY month player could be a 3 year hold back that just happens to be in that grade.

Also if a SY+60 player is playing against another team with the same school cutoff date it's a 12 month eligibility window.

General FYI GY+60 could also be written 9/1+60

[Anonymous]

Interesting recent take on BY from MLSN as they look to expand/partner with GA ...https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2025/01/18/mls-next-expansion-youth-soccer-players/77787468007/

Will kids that play high school soccer in the new tier run into trap-year issues?

A so-called “trapped” player is an eighth-grader who plays on a U15 team, which is usually comprised of ninth-graders.

In 2017, U.S. Soccer changed its age eligibility for team rosters from school year (Aug. 1-July 31) to birth year (Jan. 1-Dec. 31), a topic that has been hotly debated across youth leagues.

“I think school year is really important for social development in the early stages,” Robles says. “Let's call it before pre-professional; it's just playing soccer, right? You want to be with your friends.

“Once you enter into the stage of what is pre-professional, then you sort of want to align with what's gonna give you the most opportunity.”

MLS NEXT is using birth year registration but also determines a player’s team based on their individual situation.

“If the player needs to play down, the player plays down," Robles says. "If the club thinks the player should play up, the player plays up."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the last few posts just highlight the fact that there is no perfect system, and someone is going to be, or feel, disadvantaged. We will see what happens soon enough.

With SY+60 you eliminate all trapped players + would not allow playing down. Which according to what I've read from SY people is a good thing.

Where you would see complaints is from states or school districts that started 9/1 about states or districts that started 8/1. This is because nobody on a 9/1 team would be born before 9/1. (Unless someone moved into the district from an 8/1 district). While on the 8/1 team you'd likely have several close to 8/1 players rostered. Basically SY+60 gives up 2 months of RAE to makes everything work to accommodate different district start dates.

Still not under consideration and still weaker than just going with 7/1.

9/1 is getting more air play than 8/1, so even 10/1 more likely than 8/1.

Instead if digging your heels in on a specific date cutoff. At least think about why SY+60 makes a lot of sense.

Try to poke holes in it. (You won't be able to. Ive tried)

With a single date cutoff someone is always going to be upset.

SY+30 vs SY-30 vs SY+60 vs SY+90, you're always going all 6 min abs on this when 7 min is the number.

The biggest hole is, and I am trying to be respectful because it seems you are a kid, other than nobody has national paperwork for kids grades, teams don't want to collect and people will cheat, is that everyone making the calls is on record saying they don't want complexity, they want straight dates.

SY + 60 indeed makes a lot of sense, though my own Aug kid would become the youngest among the 14 month span. I believe he can compete with those 14 months olds and benefit himself with that. I don’t believe most Americans cannot handle this little complexity of math..

SY+60 never saw the light of day. CY or 9/1 or 8/1. Suggesting SY+60, which should technically be SY-60, is like suggesting a big expansion for ECNL trapped players to play down when ECNL leadership said that they don't like exceptions. No go.

[Anonymous]

Why would ECNL want to have the continued headache of trap players and have to continue to accommodate and manage them which takes time and money and coaching resources, plus the college recruiting issue when there are still a few kids on the team that are a different grade? Fix the problem completely now and eliminate these lingering issues, using one of the methods discussed here. A blind adherence to an 8/1 or 9/1 date doesn’t facilitate a complete answer to the problem ECNL wants to fix.