Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Birth year keeps everyone honest and doesn't encourage red-shirting, or holding a kid back a grade so they can dominate by playing down against their peers in the future.

You can't mess with a birth year but you can mess with a grade year.

I was never a grade year! It was an age group that corresponded with a grade year. If you hold a kid back in school, he will still be playing with the kids in the higher grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Birth year keeps everyone honest and doesn't encourage red-shirting, or holding a kid back a grade so they can dominate by playing down against their peers in the future.

You can't mess with a birth year but you can mess with a grade year.

Anonymous wrote:Birth year keeps everyone honest and doesn't encourage red-shirting, or holding a kid back a grade so they can dominate by playing down against their peers in the future.

Anonymous wrote:Birth year keeps everyone honest and doesn't encourage red-shirting, or holding a kid back a grade so they can dominate by playing down against their peers in the future.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no benefit for this. People have adjusted and it works better because there is only a 12 spread rather than some of the 1 1/2 - 2 years depending on red shirting. Too many parents play the red shirt system and this blocks them. You don't plan soccer for a bunch of juniors for recruiting. Most people do not play college soccer. You have the 12 month spread because it is fair.

You don't understand what is being discussed. No one is talking about age groups based solely on grade, they are talking about aligning the age groups to the soccer year which roughly corresponds with the school year (August to July). The year of birth still controls.

If it’s August to July, it is not birth year. It’s birth years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no benefit for this. People have adjusted and it works better because there is only a 12 spread rather than some of the 1 1/2 - 2 years depending on red shirting. Too many parents play the red shirt system and this blocks them. You don't plan soccer for a bunch of juniors for recruiting. Most people do not play college soccer. You have the 12 month spread because it is fair.

You don't understand what is being discussed. No one is talking about age groups based solely on grade, they are talking about aligning the age groups to the soccer year which roughly corresponds with the school year (August to July). The year of birth still controls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way it is works fine.

I'll put a vote in the column for move to a school year model (the old Aug 1 cut off was not quite the school year cutoff). As a parent of an 03 who will be a junior next year...we have seen the recruiting rules change where college coaches theoretically cannot have direct communication with players until after their sophomore year. For kids that are born in the later part of the year, it is not until the U18 year that they can really talk to college coaches. ECNL does not have U18 teams. They have a U18/U19 age group. So now when a kid is finally able to talk to coaches - their team will likely add a good number of other kids to the team.

Anonymous wrote:The way it is works fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no benefit for this. People have adjusted and it works better because there is only a 12 spread rather than some of the 1 1/2 - 2 years depending on red shirting. Too many parents play the red shirt system and this blocks them. You don't plan soccer for a bunch of juniors for recruiting. Most people do not play college soccer. You have the 12 month spread because it is fair.

You don't understand what is being discussed. No one is talking about age groups based solely on grade, they are talking about aligning the age groups to the soccer year which roughly corresponds with the school year (August to July). The year of birth still controls.

This is the time to move back to school year age groups

Anonymous wrote:There is no benefit for this. People have adjusted and it works better because there is only a 12 spread rather than some of the 1 1/2 - 2 years depending on red shirting. Too many parents play the red shirt system and this blocks them. You don't plan soccer for a bunch of juniors for recruiting. Most people do not play college soccer. You have the 12 month spread because it is fair.