Reply to Why doesn’t USA Swimming use cut-off dates like every other youth sport?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was a D1 swimmer and this conversation is absurd. It will not matter AT ALL by the time it actually counts. All sports have age-related disadvantages and advantages. My daughter has a Jan 2nd bday and plays travel soccer. You could argue she has an advantage every year over kids who are born in December, since they use the calendar year to determine age cut-offs. [/quote]THIS.  [/quote]

Just bc it evens out when the kids are 15 (good birthdays) compared to 16 (bad birthdays) doesn’t mean it didn’t have an impact before that. [/quote]

But it doesn't "even out."  Hasn't everyone heard about Malcom Gladwell and relative age/ Matthew effect at this point?  Researchers have looked at this as applied to swimming and found that the theory holds for swimming too (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8535716/).  In other words, those with advantageous birthdays are seen as better when they are young, and they get more and better opportunities while they are young.  Those opportunities accumulate over time so they end up better when they are older.  That's why you see those with May birthdays widely overrepresented at meets like Sectionals, at which point you would expect things to "even out."    (https://swimswam.com/brett-leader-looks-relative-age-age-group-swimming/[/quote]

You realize that two of the very best male swimmers in PVS age up within a few months of the spring champs meets right?  One, who just turned 17, is committed to swim at UVA, and the other slightly older one is committed to swim at NC State.  Good thing they weren't dissuaded by a few anecdotes on this board.[/quote]
These arguments about birthdays and cutoffs really don’t apply to the high level swimmers, they are successful and make cuts regardless of when a champs meet is in relation to their birthday. Sure, there are degrees of success that birthdays play a part in, but they are still making the meets. There is a valid point though in terms of keeping kids in swimming when they are just missing the big meets. At a certain point and age, cut times and the handful of big meets a year are the focus and what all the kids and coaches talk about at the bigger clubs, so if you are a swimmer that comes to practice every day and works hard but is never a part of that conversation I can imagine how that is discouraging. I don’t know what the solution is, but if parents are interested in fostering a love of the sport and having it be something their kids stick with they should be aware of these things when they pick a club. I imagine the slower swimmers at the more low key clubs don’t feel that same level of discouragement/pressure. [/quote]

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