The benefits of a trapped 8th grader.

[Guest]

With all this talk about ECNL leading the push to go back to Aug 1-July 31 team year I wonder if it’s necessary? I get at the high school level trapped players are screwed up with recruiting or ID clinics but what’s so bad for a trapped 8th grader? My kid is heading to high school this fall but have to say I’m jealous of the trapped 8th graders. The parents are piecing together fall training. A mix of town, middle school, and a trapped 8th grade club team. Trainings with top team from age group below. They are going to speed and agility and having a more balanced schedule. Honestly high school season appears to be a grind on their bodies. They start training over the summer and then intense practices and games 5 days a week and very little rest and recovery leading to injuries. The trapped players will join our freshman girls in November for trainings and spring season. They will arrive strong, rested, and mentally and physically healthier than our freshman girls. Why so many complaints and push to change the birth year? You all have an advantage this year. Your girls have been essentially playing “up” their whole lives. (sure some say playing up, being smaller, hitting puberty later may have been a disadvantage for all those years and some were overlooked.) They will enter high school next year the oldest in their grade and physically at an advantage. Don’t be so quick to change what’s not broken. Your players have the advantage now even if they haven’t felt that way in younger years.

[Guest]

Sounds like your child was born in July.

The school year or calendar year provides advantages to kids born at the beginning of the cycle and hurts the ones born at the end. The goal of the school year is to keep the kids in the same grade together. Like you said, it helps with college recruiting in HS. It also helps with getting and keeping more kids playing the sport when they first start in elementary school.

Sounds like your club team has done a good job with trapped 8th graders. Your club is the outlier in the national scene of youth soccer clubs across the country. For the most part, people who are arguing about the issues of trapped 8th graders, their kids are left on an island by themself the winter of their 8th grade.

[Guest]

Sounds like your child was born in July.
The goal of the school year is to keep the kids in the same grade together. Like you said, it helps with college recruiting in HS. It also helps with getting and keeping more kids playing the sport when they first start in elementary school.

Massachusetts town soccer basically has school-year-based age groups. I don't think any of the town programs have to use birth year, regardless of what happens with US Soccer or ECNL. Also unless your town has single age groups, most kids will start soccer with other kids across a couple grades, not just in your kid's specific age group.

[Guest]

Trapped 8th graders get screwed every year. Glad they are fixing it. Too late for my kids in high school but long overdue.