ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Thank you for that explanation!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the latest one, the ECNL team agreed that biobanding would be a disaster to implement and having trapped player exceptions can be problematic (like telling a boy playing down is not a punishment, some view it as a form of cheating, etc.) They also discussed that research found that going to calendar age didn't reduce the relative age effect, it merely slide it to different months.

An interesting side note was that the research infered that coaches were found to be ignoring who the youngest and oldest players in their birth year cohorts are so relative age effect remediation should start by educating coaches and clubs to what they are doing (which seemed like they were saying that should grade players based on a birth month curve when picking the players for top teams)

After the original podcast it seemed like they were trying to justify/float a trial balloon of the idea of expanding the trapped player rule in some way but today's podcast made it pretty clear that there was consensus that school age was better for youth soccer than calendar age. A particular point was made that kids want to play with their school mates when first playing soccer and splitting grade at the outset of their school journey leads to a decrease in overall soccer participation.

Oh FFS- that same boy was was playing up every single year until he became trapped Senior of HS when all boys have gone through puberty/growth anyways. Now we call his 1 single year cheating vs the January bdays that had every year as the oldest. Lmaof

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain what the new rule would be? Cause I don’t get how it would keep a school year group of kids together. Maybe I’m being dense. My kid has an April birthday. His friend has a September birthday and they are in the same grade (born the same year). Would they remain on the same team? It sounds like my kid with the April birthday could be pushed “up” to an older team and his friend with the September birthday could be pushed “down” to the younger team. Is that correct?

April birthday would remain in same U whatever. September birthday of the same year would be U whatever minus one. In most school districts that September kid with same birth year who is currenly in the same grade has either failed a year or the parent redshirted him for kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here — if the point is to keep kids in the same grade together, how does this help?

For existing teams, think of moving from calendar year months to school year months as allowing about a quarter of the players to go back a year. Or they can stay on their teams/age brackets. So movement wouldn't be needed, only allowed. It presents an opportunity for players that are born in August to December and playing with an older grade to drop down a year and play with their classmates.

MSI Classic says they follow calendar year with an exception for kids born from July to Dec can play down a year if they are in "that grade at school." And MLS Next has biobanding exception while ECNL has trapped player exception.

So ECNL could just follow MSI Classic's lead and stick with calendar year but add an exception for kids born between say August and December to go back a year. Sure, it's just semantics but so are all the exceptions.

When you think about it, ECNL and MLS Next / GA having slightly different rules could be a reasonable way for youth soccer to combat relative age effects as players/teams could have differing months as there oldest months.

Ohhh i would love the exception. My DS is a Nov 2014 and his best mate is a Jan 2015. His whole team this year was 3rd graders playing up to U10. Next year the 2015s aren't going to play up, so they can't play together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain what the new rule would be? Cause I don’t get how it would keep a school year group of kids together. Maybe I’m being dense. My kid has an April birthday. His friend has a September birthday and they are in the same grade (born the same year). Would they remain on the same team? It sounds like my kid with the April birthday could be pushed “up” to an older team and his friend with the September birthday could be pushed “down” to the younger team. Is that correct?

April birthday would remain in same U whatever. September birthday of the same year would be U whatever minus one. In most school districts that September kid with same birth year who is currenly in the same grade has either failed a year or the parent redshirted him for kindergarten.

.

We have redshirted spring and summer bdays at our private HS (much earlier than September hold backs). Coach’s son is one of these. Lmaof

[Anonymous]

If they put this in place for 25-26, wow!

My late Nov birth, rising u15 would, I guess, repeat or have the option to repeat u15 next year under this plan? We are trapped this fall, and have the option of playing down with the current u14 team until the HS season ends.

[Anonymous]

Question for those more knowledgeable than me. My daughter is an October birthday so this would for sure benefit her as she gets older if she sticks with soccer. My question is on this topic of trapped player, is it not allowed to play varsity school sports in 8th grade. (I was on varsity as an 8th grader forever ago in another state). Presumably if you have been playing with 9th graders your whole career and they are good enough to make the teams you would be also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for those more knowledgeable than me. My daughter is an October birthday so this would for sure benefit her as she gets older if she sticks with soccer. My question is on this topic of trapped player, is it not allowed to play varsity school sports in 8th grade. (I was on varsity as an 8th grader forever ago in another state). Presumably if you have been playing with 9th graders your whole career and they are good enough to make the teams you would be also.

You can't play on a HS team if you are not at the actual HS> They may be good enough but if you are not a student you can't represent the school. Most HS (with the exception of private) are not 8-12th but 9-12th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain what the new rule would be? Cause I don’t get how it would keep a school year group of kids together. Maybe I’m being dense. My kid has an April birthday. His friend has a September birthday and they are in the same grade (born the same year). Would they remain on the same team? It sounds like my kid with the April birthday could be pushed “up” to an older team and his friend with the September birthday could be pushed “down” to the younger team. Is that correct?

April birthday would remain in same U whatever. September birthday of the same year would be U whatever minus one. In most school districts that September kid with same birth year who is currenly in the same grade has either failed a year or the parent redshirted him for kindergarten.

September is a mixed bag as many school districts are 8/31 or 9/1 or 9/30

So those born in september either just make the cut off or just miss it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain what the new rule would be? Cause I don’t get how it would keep a school year group of kids together. Maybe I’m being dense. My kid has an April birthday. His friend has a September birthday and they are in the same grade (born the same year). Would they remain on the same team? It sounds like my kid with the April birthday could be pushed “up” to an older team and his friend with the September birthday could be pushed “down” to the younger team. Is that correct?

April birthday would remain in same U whatever. September birthday of the same year would be U whatever minus one. In most school districts that September kid with same birth year who is currenly in the same grade has either failed a year or the parent redshirted him for kindergarten.

September is a mixed bag as many school districts are 8/31 or 9/1 or 9/30

So those born in september either just make the cut off or just miss it.

If the date is made 8/1, then all 3 of those dates you mentioned benefit from the change. Let's be clear. Whatever date is chosen, someone is born at the beginning of the year and someone is born at the end. Relative age effect is still there. This is to keep all the kids in a grade playing together instead of splitting August - December born kids in a grade above and January - July kids in a grade below.

[Anonymous]

I don't know about all the leagues and who sets the tone/leads the change.

If this changes for ECNL, does that mean its likely to have NCSL follow suit?

[Anonymous]

I heard another podcast where they explained that in addition to the trapped player problem, they are finding kids in the school year may be less likely to quit the sport if they are playing with their school friends vs. soccer friends. They said the number of kids quitting soccer is extremely high and some feel having a stronger cohort of schoolmates / teammates would lessen the number of kids leaving soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard another podcast where they explained that in addition to the trapped player problem, they are finding kids in the school year may be less likely to quit the sport if they are playing with their school friends vs. soccer friends. They said the number of kids quitting soccer is extremely high and some feel having a stronger cohort of schoolmates / teammates would lessen the number of kids leaving soccer.

We've seen a few kids quit travel soccer for this very reason. Aug–Dec birthday kid always had to play up an age bracket compared to classmates and got into the 'B' team track. Eventually as trapped 8th graders they basically quit playing.

That said being, travel programs (for example) don't have to follow BY. Some state travel programs essentially have stayed with school year and avoided this problem. Other programs have chosen to play their strong teams "up" a year in the fall to give those kids a place to play. It doesn't seem to be a big problem and actually gives the younger players a good challenge.

Now when it comes to ECNL players, I do wonder: How many realistic college prospects actually prioritize playing with their classmates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard another podcast where they explained that in addition to the trapped player problem, they are finding kids in the school year may be less likely to quit the sport if they are playing with their school friends vs. soccer friends. They said the number of kids quitting soccer is extremely high and some feel having a stronger cohort of schoolmates / teammates would lessen the number of kids leaving soccer.

Stop bringing so much logic into this debate.

[Anonymous]

If you are really trying to help the players, you have to move off of a yearly calendar. You would group players by their birth months.

So groups would be Jan-march, April-June, July-September and October- December. This would address the problems with the current system.

Look at the players birth month on your team. If you are on a top team it will run something like Jan-March 60%, April-June 25%, July-September 10%, October- December 5%