Reply to US soccer rumors of changing back age groups?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Playing with your grade makes sense. I think it would keep more kids involved in competitive soccer. It is a fact that some athletic kids move on to other sports from lost opportunity. My daughter is young in the ulittles, her best friend is dying to play with her and can't because they are born different years. She is doing rec instead and another sport more competitive. I'm not saying this girl is the next Alex Morgan, or even that she won't end up in travel down the road, but thousands and thousands of these small examples add up for impact on participation. I personally quit soccer way back and moved on to other sports because I couldn't play travel with my grade. I missed the cutoff by a few days. I was able to play other sports with my friends and got more into those. I was nothing special, but again, all these things add up.

The biggest problem to that, however, is that states have different cutoffs. September 1 is by far the most common with some more earlier/later in August or September. Very few, most notably pockets around NY, use calendar year. There's no perfect answer but I say pick something that works for the most people and maybe give a 30-day buffer for an outlier based on that jurisdictions cutoff. Are we really gonna be up in arms if a girl born August 15 plays because that state has August 1st? This really only screws the calendar year school districts, which are a small minority. I have no good solution for that.[/quote]

For me, the "play with schoolmates" issue is very short-sighted.  Yes, there "could" be friends on the same team, but my DD plays on a team with 18 girls and none attend to her school, yes even those in same grade.  They come from all over.  Think if you live in a dense county or DC even, chances are you live in same MS or HS district will be very rare.  Playing with your friends is a simple answer to change, but really is [u]the only one[/u] to revert back.  Changing back now would blow-up teams playing together for a few years now, especially any girls on good teams in competitive leagues.  Any parent advocating for this is in tiny U-ages where it won't matter nearly as much.  There always has to be a cutoff.

What about kids in Georgia who go back to school beginning of August while rest of us go back (some places) week before Labor Day or week after.  So, your DD or DS's friend born on 6 Sep would play on U12, for example, and their school friend born Aug 15 will play U13.  Same grade, different U leagues.  When they get to HS, they get to play all the soccer they want together for the HS team, but what happens if one gets varsity and the other JV?  My DD is about 6'2" and is youngest on the team with December birth.  Physicality isn't an argument as she's twice the size of girls born in Feb.

Friends on team is worst rationale to blow up established teams and extremely individualistic.  Sign of the times for sure.[/quote]

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