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Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

Why even let club swimmers do summer swim at all then?!

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.

"The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others."

Except....in club swim. There is no cut off date. You swim as the age you are. You age up on your birthday. That doesn't advantage or disadvantage any kids. It just is what it is. Everyone knows it and accepts it.

I fully support summer swim kids aging up on their birthdays. Someone picking a random arbitrary date and everyone sticking by it for years and years is ludicrous to me. It's like the people that say, "Oh this is how we've always done it! It's tradition!"
A tradition that makes no sense.

The birthday rule does disadvantage certain kids in club swim because the big championship meets are in March every year. So kids who age up right before that have to swim against kids in the championship meets almost two years older (or almost a year older in their interim year).

Right. But that disadvantage is based on the date of your birth, something that cannot be changed and is totally legitimate.....not a random arbitrary age up date picked by some person 25 years ago.

My DC has a late February birthday and they already know this is a huge disadvantage in club swim. It is what it is.

Anonymous wrote:How about a rule that coaches and assistant coaches can't swim for the team they're coaching?

Anonymous wrote:The BD thing is what it is. . .I have a late May kid who will probably never get the serious swimming bug because they won't be a star in summer swim. Which is fine by me because our summer vacations won't be dictated by MCSL and Zones once his older sibling is out of the house! His much older sibling has big success in summer swimming (and they actually swim their age) but it makes for an unpleasant summer for the rest of the family.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

Why even let club swimmers do summer swim at all then?!

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.

"The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others."

Except....in club swim. There is no cut off date. You swim as the age you are. You age up on your birthday. That doesn't advantage or disadvantage any kids. It just is what it is. Everyone knows it and accepts it.

I fully support summer swim kids aging up on their birthdays. Someone picking a random arbitrary date and everyone sticking by it for years and years is ludicrous to me. It's like the people that say, "Oh this is how we've always done it! It's tradition!"
A tradition that makes no sense.

Anonymous wrote:Someone is always going to have a great birthday or terrible birthday. I have swimmers on both sides and vote to leave it as it is. If you love the birthday cutoff to 8/1, then your July birthdays will be at a disadvantage. 14 year olds swimming with 15-18s.

In the end it’s a rec level sport, and most rec level sports divide kids by grade in school. That hurts those that started early and helps those that were redshirted or held back, it is what it is.

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Anonymous wrote:Is this thread just about age up dates?

I'd like to see MCSL adopt NVSL rules on maximum number of events to be more inclusive in A meets. A 2 event max seems preferable to the MCSL rule which allows 3 individual events, plus IM plus a relay - so a swimmer can swim in 5 events each A meet.

I like this rule, but would it help or hurt smaller teams that can’t fill lanes? Would an empty lane be more or less of a penalty?

They could modify the rule similar to how they do age ups when they can't fill lanes (if there aren't enough 13-14yo boys, for example, they can age up an 11-12yo) - so if they really don't have enough swimmers to fill the lanes, a swimmer could swim a 3rd event.

NP - I think two events for an A meet is more stringent than necessary, maybe we could split the difference and do three events per kid, including relays?

A meets aside, I really would like a change applied to this rule for Divisionals. It's not a team event the way MCSL has it set up, it's for the fastest kids only. That should change, IMO (said as a parent whose kids swim at Divisionals).

I like that - 2 individual events max plus relays, so a swimmer could swim 3 events.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

Why even let club swimmers do summer swim at all then?!

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.

"The reality is that every team sport has a cut off date that advantages some kids and disadvantages others."

Except....in club swim. There is no cut off date. You swim as the age you are. You age up on your birthday. That doesn't advantage or disadvantage any kids. It just is what it is. Everyone knows it and accepts it.

I fully support summer swim kids aging up on their birthdays. Someone picking a random arbitrary date and everyone sticking by it for years and years is ludicrous to me. It's like the people that say, "Oh this is how we've always done it! It's tradition!"
A tradition that makes no sense.

The birthday rule does disadvantage certain kids in club swim because the big championship meets are in March every year. So kids who age up right before that have to swim against kids in the championship meets almost two years older (or almost a year older in their interim year).

Right. But that disadvantage is based on the date of your birth, something that cannot be changed and is totally legitimate.....not a random arbitrary age up date picked by some person 25 years ago.

My DC has a late February birthday and they already know this is a huge disadvantage in club swim. It is what it is.

The fact that the big meets are in march is definitely random and arbitrary.

There are also big meets in December, May and July. If you’re a February birthday kid, the winter champs meets are your focus. Also by the time a club swimmer is in HS the timing of their birthday matters a lot less.

The Long Course ones are an after thought for lots of kids because of summer swim and vacations. Many don’t even go. The winter ones are not LSC wide. What big meets are in May? Zones? Let’s not pretend that short course AGC isn’t the big meet of the year.

The fact that the big winter champs meets are not LSC wide doesn’t make them not important meets. NCI has super fast swimmers from all over the east coast, sometimes it’s faster than SC champs in March. Super sectionals are in May. The fact that your particular kid doesn’t care about LC because of summer swim and vacations is a personal choice. You’re just making a bunch of excuses for why your kid is disadvantaged.

My kid isn’t disadvantaged for the short course AGCs. But i recognize others are.

Swimming your actual age is the most fair way to handle club swim. Otherwise you have absurdities like a kid that turned 13 back on January 2nd dominating the 11-12 age group at a March champs meet, or a kid that turned 13 on May 2nd dominating the 11-12 age group at the July champs meet.

I don’t see how that’s any more fair. Kids don’t magically mature on their birthdays.

It is absolutely the fairest way to do it. There has to be a cutoff, it has to be somewhere, and it’s stupid to have 13 year olds competing in 11-12 events months after they have turned 13. Swim is an individual sport so there are none of the team consistency and chemistry arguments that apply to team sports that use a cutoff date as opposed to the individual athlete’s birthday.