Reply to MCSL rule changes for summer 2026

Forum Index » Swimming and Diving

Reply to "MCSL rule changes for summer 2026"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I love the idea of the age group determination date being August 1st. Whatever age you are by August 1st is the age group you swim in for that summer season. 
So if you turn 9 on August 1st or anytime before that, you swim in 9-10s that whole summer. It makes sense.

Most of the girls in the "8&U" age group who made coach's long course and individual all stars this year were already 9 years old or days/weeks away. The fastest "8&U" girl who is breaking a bunch of MCSL records literally had her birthday announced on the individual all star meet day. Before all you keyboard warriors come at me like OMG ARE YOU A STALKER?! HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THEIR AGES?!...this is publicly available information online. If you don't like this, write to you're representative to get legislation in place. It's utterly creepy how publicly available all of our swimmers' info is on MeetMobile etc etc.

Let's not kid ourselves either about "oh this is just for fun!!! It's summer swim you troll!!!! How dare you take this from the children?!?!". I'd say 99% of the 8&U girls who made coach's long course or individual all stars are year-round club swimmers. So they're used to the year-round rule which is....you age up on your birthday. Changing it to August 1st would give ACTUAL 8&Us that aren't club swimmers a chance to make those events.  [/quote]

Changing the date would advantage different kids, but it wouldn’t change the huge advantage that club swimmers have.  Why are you confusing those things?[/quote]

Why even let club swimmers do summer swim at all then?![/quote]

I am the PP you quoted.  I don’t object to club swimmers swimming, as long as they get that it’s a team rec sport and entirely different from club swimming.

But the PP I quoted seemed to be saying that the advantage that club swimmers have somehow justifies changing the age when the two things are completely separate.

The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others.  I have a kid with a late July birthday, he  has an advantage in Summer Swim, a disadvantage in his favorite sport which has a August 1 cut off, a bigger disadvantage in lacrosse where they play by age and lots of kids are redshirted, and unclear status in soccer right now because the ages seem to be changing.  It just is what it is.  But I don’t go demanding that the rules change in any of those sports.  Because I am not a poor sport.[/quote]

+1. Summer swim is what? Six weeks? Are we really going to kick freshly minted 9-year olds out of their age groups and relays in mid July and make them start swimming 50s with kids who are nearly two full years older? How is that fair?

I have no problem with the age up rule in club swim. Everyone is going to have a down period as they have birthdays, no one gets singled out. But for summer swim you are really penalizing the summer birthday kids. These kids get penalized enough. June 1 is fine. [/quote]
I really don’t care about the age up issue, but the people that insist the rule remain age on June 1st are no different than the people arguing it should be age on August 1st. The only difference is which group of kids is being disadvantaged. It’s 2 sides of the same coin.[/quote]

Well yes and no.  Accepting something the way it is, even if it advantages your child is different than accepting when your child is advantaged and throwing a tantrum when someone else's child is advantaged.  The latter is what the people trying to change a date that's been used for 25 years are doing, and rewarding their poor sportsmanship would be horrible.  It's no difference than buying your kid candy because they throw a fit in the checkout line.  [/quote]
😂 and how do you think the date ended up being changed 25 years ago? Come off your high horse July birthday mom.[/quote]

Sure. Will you help me down, October mom?

And changing it to August 1 could conceivably lock a number of swimmers out of swimming their senior year. It’s pretty common for people to hold back their summer birthday boys around here. [/quote]
I have no dog in this fight. My kid has a spring birthday and doesn’t care that much about summer swim. I just can’t comprehend that people on both sides of this debate cannot see that they arguing the same thing, just for a different result. You’re also really reaching with the redshirted summer birthday boy argument, that does not tip the scales to June 1 being more fair. Do we really need 19 year olds being able to swim as 18 year olds in summer rec league swim?[/quote]

It’s true that a change would advantage or disadvantage a different group of kids.    But June 1 is still a very odd date to pick.  It’s two weeks before the first meet of the season.  Using that date means there are kids who don’t swim their actual age at any meet the entire season.  If you are going to pick a date before the season even starts, then why not January 1?  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics