Reply to If your kid was one of the youngest, did it impact their ability to make competitive HS teams?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've had three boys play high school sports.  In our experience, I honestly don't think age has any impact on making the team.  I do think when someone goes through puberty can make a huge difference, especially with boys.  And work ethic and talent.  The kid who puts in the work will have a much better chance of making a competitive high school than the gifted athlete or the older kid who never puts in any effort.

I have one DS who was an early bloomer and was heads and shoulders taller than everyone else his age when he was a freshman in high school.  But he never grew another inch, or really gained any weight.  By his junior year, he was one of the smaller one's in his class.  He does work at his sport so he's managed to stay competitive.  And my youngest was the exact opposite.  He was average sized when he started high school.  He really started growing at 15, and is now 17 and still growing.  He is now one of the tallest in his class and works out and it shows in his physique and on the playing field.  He's actually on the young side (late April birthday.)

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It's this - when they hit puberty. If they're young AND late to puberty, it is tough. One of my spring birthdays was early to puberty and played varsity as a freshman. The other spring birthday was still growing freshman year and didn't hit is stride with varsity sports until junior year. Ability level roughly the same - just the size difference between a little boy body and a fully grown man body is hard to overcome.

Maybe a sport like wrestling or a skill sport like squash would go easier on a later puberty kid
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This.
In early years age matters because you're going to have kids who are right at the young end of the cut off you are going to have them competing with kids who are a year or 1 year and 6 months older in some cases.
In late elementary and middle school puberty matters a lot and by HS it does matter less but the problem is by the time you are at that point the kids who were bigger got higher level training and praise for being good that they may be better. If you are young, small and late to puberty you can rule out a sport like basketball and some of the popular physical team sports unless the child is really exceptional. [/quote]

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