Back in 2011, NVSL had the rule that you aged up on your actual birthday. IF your birthday happened to fall during the week between Divisionals and All Stars, and you made All Stars, you could still swim at All Stars in your old age group, even if you were now in the higher age group. Otherwise, Week 1 you're an 8 & U, Birthday between Week 1 & Week 2, Week 2 you're now in 9-10s.

The team reps voted and the rule was changed for the 2012 season. When the rule changed, I disliked it but a couple of years later, I thought it was the right call.

Besides club swim is there any other sport that has kids age up partway through the year?

Anonymous wrote:How in the world do you know all of these kids' ages? Please tell me your not google searching them.

There are swimming sites where the club swimmers’ age and month are listed (ie 12 years 11 months). You also can see for example kids competing at 13 and over champs this weekend that are listed as being 12 on their summer team because that was their age on June 1. Parents like to complain about this but the reality is the kids don’t care. And no I’m not a summer birthday parent, my kid has a May birthday.

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the league record-breakers for our summer league and every single one of them is swimming in the age bracket below their true age. Why is summer swim set up like this? Club teams manage just fine having kids swim their true age.

Summer swim is set up like this because relays are such a huge part of scoring and it's too hard to constantly move them around.

Using real age (aging up mid-season) will always be a non-starter for this reason. If you want to petition for a change, anyone is welcome to. The only thing I could imagine working would be moving to an August 1 cutoff instead of June 1.

How in the world do you know all of these kids' ages? Please tell me your not google searching them.

Anonymous wrote:Why does it matter? Most sports have a birthdate cut off. If you do that, you always have kids who are old and kids who are young. It happens because of where the cut off is that it's the June/July kids who are old for their group. My July kid has an advantage in summer swim, and a disadvantage in water polo, and is in the middle of the pack in soccer.

Are you proposing that kids should be changing groups during a 6 week season? That sounds like a logistical nightmare.

This was proposed last year. When I pointed out that my kids bday occurred the week between divisionals and all stars I was told she should give up her all star relay spot to a kid who was the “correct age” But ya know another year when her bday falls on Sunday I guess she’d get to keep her relay spot 🙄

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the league record-breakers for our summer league and every single one of them is swimming in the age bracket below their true age. Why is summer swim set up like this? Club teams manage just fine having kids swim their true age.

Club teams swim year-round. Summer swim is short.

There was like 40 page thread on this last year. Every major summer swim league does it like this. If it really bothers you, petition your rep to submit a rule proposal. Good luck with that.

Please, OP... get a life. It's just summer swim. It's a fun, short season that no one should take too seriously.

Why does it matter? Most sports have a birthdate cut off. If you do that, you always have kids who are old and kids who are young. It happens because of where the cut off is that it's the June/July kids who are old for their group. My July kid has an advantage in summer swim, and a disadvantage in water polo, and is in the middle of the pack in soccer.

Are you proposing that kids should be changing groups during a 6 week season? That sounds like a logistical nightmare.

Anonymous wrote:They were the correct age on June 1st. Too bad for other kids. Summer birthdays win the day in summer swim!

Agree - every birth date has its pros and cons. It is what it is.

I have two summer birthday kids and I can tell you that summer swim is literally the only world in which that is an advantageous birthdate. It sucks for everything else.

Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book - outliers - for some perspective. It’s not just summer swim.

In short, move on. Summer swim is like this nationwide.

Oh god. Not this again. Please stop this.

They were the correct age on June 1st. Too bad for other kids. Summer birthdays win the day in summer swim!

Looking at the league record-breakers for our summer league and every single one of them is swimming in the age bracket below their true age. Why is summer swim set up like this? Club teams manage just fine having kids swim their true age.