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Post by ilove8amgames on Aug 18, 2015 10:26:58 GMT -5
Empathize with those kids who may have a gap year in HS due to change. Hopefully it can be mitigated and only affects 1 year group of kids.
Otherwise, all other concerns really don't move the needle for me. The other concerns - with all due respect - seem to come down to a preference due to current age advantages shifting to another group.
Teams will readjust at tryouts, as they always do. The first year (next year) will have some more disruption than normal, but it will work itself out. I bet this time next year, everyone will be happy with their new teams after the dust settles (except, of course, those who complain about everything no matter how blue the sky might be and how many birds are chirping).
My two cents.
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Post by Soccerhouse on Aug 18, 2015 10:37:46 GMT -5
no question, next year will be a strange transition! some current u11s will jump directly to u13 competitive play! Thats a big jump. I know its all relative, but still.
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Post by zizou on Aug 18, 2015 11:31:03 GMT -5
I'm going out on a limb here but likely those parents with kids born Aug-Dec are not happy with the change & those parents of kids born Jan-May are thrilled. I actually think thats backwards? The Jan-May kids got to play with older kids before and now they will have to play with younger less developed kids. The chart below shows why people are up in arms about this switch. I imported birthday data from the ECNL website for all of last year's players for who such data were available. I used these data because they were easy to get. Even though birthdays were not listed for all players in the league, this chart is based on over 1500 kids. What is plotted in BLUE is the proportion of total U14 players born in a given month (it says percentage, but I was not going to change it at this point!). What is plotted in RED is the expected proportion of such birthdays based on US Census. The months start in August and go through July. The U13s bar is the number of U13s who were also rostered. It was hard to tell how much some of them played. Some teams had 10 such players, but had no player numbers listed for them, no games played listed, etc. I assume the vast majority of those players were being given the opportunity to taste the league before they would be competing full time the following year. The bottom line is that if you were born at the beginning of the age cycle you had a tremendous advantage. Over 23% of the players in the league came from the first 2 birth months. Alternatively, if you were born in the last month of the cycle you were at a tremendous disadvantage. Just a little over 3% of players in the league were born in July. Shocking when you look at this graph but not unexpected given other data available documenting similar phenomena. So now those August and September birthday kids are no longer going to have the same age advantage (they will be like the March and April kids). The October-December kids are now going to look like the May-July kids. I am not saying any way is more fair. But these are some dramatic effects and are going to cause dramatic changes to what some people considered reality.
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Post by SoccerMom on Aug 18, 2015 11:36:19 GMT -5
Interesting chart...i will use my daughter's team
We would lose 3 players....the rest are all born the same year. I never felt like my kid was at a disadvantage either
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Post by youthsoccerdad on Aug 18, 2015 12:26:52 GMT -5
Interesting chart...i will use my daughter's team We would lose 3 players....the rest are all born the same year. I never felt like my kid was at a disadvantage either What are you trying to say?
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ssm
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Post by ssm on Aug 18, 2015 12:27:23 GMT -5
Going cold turkey in September 2016 is going to be a lot of chaos. I think it would sit better to start fresh with the young groups and grandfather the older ones. That would also allow time to iron out any kinks that pop up. Like, what happens to those late fall birthdays who are a grade behind the rest of the team because of the school cut-off? What do those eighth graders do in the Spring while the rest of their teammates are playing freshman/HS soccer?
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Post by youthsoccerdad on Aug 18, 2015 12:32:49 GMT -5
I actually think thats backwards? The Jan-May kids got to play with older kids before and now they will have to play with younger less developed kids. The chart below shows why people are up in arms about this switch. I imported birthday data from the ECNL website for all of last year's players for who such data were available. I used these data because they were easy to get. Even though birthdays were not listed for all players in the league, this chart is based on over 1500 kids. What is plotted in BLUE is the proportion of total U14 players born in a given month (it says percentage, but I was not going to change it at this point!). What is plotted in RED is the expected proportion of such birthdays based on US Census. The months start in August and go through July. The U13s bar is the number of U13s who were also rostered. It was hard to tell how much some of them played. Some teams had 10 such players, but had no player numbers listed for them, no games played listed, etc. I assume the vast majority of those players were being given the opportunity to taste the league before they would be competing full time the following year. The bottom line is that if you were born at the beginning of the age cycle you had a tremendous advantage. Over 23% of the players in the league came from the first 2 birth months. Alternatively, if you were born in the last month of the cycle you were at a tremendous disadvantage. Just a little over 3% of players in the league were born in July. Shocking when you look at this graph but not unexpected given other data available documenting similar phenomena. So now those August and September birthday kids are no longer going to have the same age advantage (they will be like the March and April kids). The October-December kids are now going to look like the May-July kids. I am not saying any way is more fair. But these are some dramatic effects and are going to cause dramatic changes to what some people considered reality. Good chart. True and what is to be expected.
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Post by youthsoccerdad on Aug 18, 2015 12:34:05 GMT -5
Going cold turkey in September 2016 is going to be a lot of chaos. I think it would sit better to start fresh with the young groups and grandfather the older ones. That would also allow time to iron out any kinks that pop up. Like, what happens to those late fall birthdays who are a grade behind the rest of the team because of the school cut-off? What do those eighth graders do in the Spring while the rest of their teammates are playing freshman/HS soccer? Everything will be fine. No reason to space out the change, make it all at once and it will be a non issue a few weeks later.
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Post by stevieg on Aug 18, 2015 12:38:54 GMT -5
I still don't understand the point of making the change in the first place. Yes, I get they are trying to sync up youth soccer with the national teams, ODP, be more like Europe, etc. 99.99% of these kids will never get near a national team at any age group so why make a change to help the 0.01% who really don't need the help anyway? My kid will actually benefit as she is a January birthday currently playing at a club with other goalkeepers in her age bracket who are in the Aug-Dec group, but it seems like a waste of time and energy that could be better used for actual player development, training refs, etc.
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ssm
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Post by ssm on Aug 18, 2015 12:39:06 GMT -5
Going cold turkey in September 2016 is going to be a lot of chaos. I think it would sit better to start fresh with the young groups and grandfather the older ones. That would also allow time to iron out any kinks that pop up. Like, what happens to those late fall birthdays who are a grade behind the rest of the team because of the school cut-off? What do those eighth graders do in the Spring while the rest of their teammates are playing freshman/HS soccer? Everything will be fine. No reason to space out the change, make it all at once and it will be a non issue a few weeks later. You're right, everything will even out fine. And I'm actually not opposed to the change - but some areas of clarification would be helpful in preparing.
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Post by jash on Aug 18, 2015 12:43:22 GMT -5
Everything will be fine. No reason to space out the change, make it all at once and it will be a non issue a few weeks later. Big clubs will definitely be fine. Small clubs are going to have a lot more trouble with this. There will be players left with nowhere to play because of the way the age groups fall out, and age gaps between teams (e.g. no U15 team at the club). It's going to be messy for some.
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Post by youthsoccerdad on Aug 18, 2015 12:52:42 GMT -5
Everything will be fine. No reason to space out the change, make it all at once and it will be a non issue a few weeks later. You're right, everything will even out fine. And I'm actually not opposed to the change - but some areas of clarification would be helpful in preparing. I think the old system was pretty fair and spread out the birthday advantage across multiple kids on the boys side - AUG - DEC an advantage during academy prior to DA, JAN - MAR an advantage post DA. That said, times are changing. I just need to play my one year old up to U2 so he gets use to playing the big kids.
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Post by guest on Aug 18, 2015 13:52:33 GMT -5
Why do we not have school organized by Birth year? It really has little to do with the needs of the working class. We all know who drove the long summer holiday agenda, right? Rich people who wanted to go somewhere nice when the weather got hot. Rich people pushed an agenda that the middle classes followed. I would say this is close to historical fact. Summer wheat needs to be brought in in July. Pretty sure agriculture has something to do with the historical roots.
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Post by SoccerMom on Aug 18, 2015 14:17:11 GMT -5
Interesting chart...i will use my daughter's team We would lose 3 players....the rest are all born the same year. I never felt like my kid was at a disadvantage either What are you trying to say? I used my daughters team as an example for the change If we go calendar year...we would loose 3 players. The rest of the team all born the same year. My kid is a Jan kid and I never felt she was at a disadvantage from the older kids on her team
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Post by guest on Aug 18, 2015 14:18:22 GMT -5
OK, to summarize: Reasons against the change: Concerns with NL/RPL/ECNL teams getting split, roster continuity, etc Concerns with the 8th-9th grade issue Concerns with the 12th grade issue (may not be that big a deal; U18/U19 combined?) Uneven teams in adjacent years, ie: a club with top U14 team in RPL but only Athena B top team in U13 Disparate impact on all but the largest clubs Misalignment with high schools Misalignment with colleges Breaking up of teams that have played together for years (for those at large clubs this does happen; club hopping is not universal) Loss of camaraderie that may be the most important reason for playing for a large chunk of select players (this will be big one for my child) Absolutely no customer (parent/player) input on how to implement said change Absolutely no other option to 'vote with your feet' Reasons for the change: Alignment with most of the developed soccer world You're right, how could us rubes here in the sticks have any concern at all about this? If we're going to align with the rest of the world, why don't we just get it over with and adopt the metric system?!? If only we would start using the Decabet ( snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rdecabet.phtml) then surely we will start winning World Cups!
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Post by lowden587 on Aug 18, 2015 14:18:27 GMT -5
I must say I do not get the concern over the change to birth year by USSF. And I also do not agree that they should have some sort of public discourse. They are a private entity. They have an agenda in a big picture sense. They can do what they want so that, from their perspective, they optimize (either in terms of efficiency or product) the probability that they attain that objective. I doubt they made this decision thoughtlessly. Could be wrong about that but I am betting that at some point in the discussions the amount of grief they would received was mentioned at least once. Their agenda obviously has nothing to do with aligning with school years. Likewise, families can do what they want. If they do not like something a private entity does they can talk with their feet. If I was going to be outraged about something that had to do with school years I might be outraged over the ridiculously short educational time our children receive. People do know, I assume, that this Fall through late Spring/early Summer school year thing with loooooong summer holiday is also a fairly recent (and arbitrary) historical occurrence. Why do we not have school organized by Birth year? It really has little to do with the needs of the working class. We all know who drove the long summer holiday agenda, right? Rich people who wanted to go somewhere nice when the weather got hot. Rich people pushed an agenda that the middle classes followed. I would say this is close to historical fact. So. If I was inclined to do something with significant social consequence I might push for our education system to follow the USSF. Move schools to birth year, increase the length of instructional time, and let's push for our kids to the best and the brightest in the entire industrialized world. Heck, in the whole universe! Yes you definately "do not get it". This is a massive change that is being instituted for no rational reason. To "get in line with the international scene" (their words) is not a good reason to upend GA whole soccer club system. There was a reason we switched to the school year for club soccer in the first place....it just worked much better! Now you have 8th graders that won't being playing at all for a season, maybe high school seniors that won't have a team, not to mention teams being separated, and this is better why??? Answer: it's not. Of course it is hard to argue with your irrefutable logic of "you don't like it walk". Usually private entities that provide a service do care what their customers think and would want to know what they felt about changes. Maybe GA Soccer could stand up to them? Doubt it. Thank you for your "history" lesson about school years and summer holidays, very enlightening. Also, in the future please tell me what else I'm supposed to be "outraged" about. Your noble condescension is so appreciative.
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Post by SoccerMom on Aug 18, 2015 14:24:11 GMT -5
Everything will be fine. No reason to space out the change, make it all at once and it will be a non issue a few weeks later. Big clubs will definitely be fine. Small clubs are going to have a lot more trouble with this. There will be players left with nowhere to play because of the way the age groups fall out, and age gaps between teams (e.g. no U15 team at the club). It's going to be messy for some. i think we will see a lot of movement between clubs once its implemented, and it will hurt the smaller clubs unfortunately
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Post by SoccerMom on Aug 18, 2015 14:30:28 GMT -5
I must say I do not get the concern over the change to birth year by USSF. And I also do not agree that they should have some sort of public discourse. They are a private entity. They have an agenda in a big picture sense. They can do what they want so that, from their perspective, they optimize (either in terms of efficiency or product) the probability that they attain that objective. I doubt they made this decision thoughtlessly. Could be wrong about that but I am betting that at some point in the discussions the amount of grief they would received was mentioned at least once. Their agenda obviously has nothing to do with aligning with school years. Likewise, families can do what they want. If they do not like something a private entity does they can talk with their feet. If I was going to be outraged about something that had to do with school years I might be outraged over the ridiculously short educational time our children receive. People do know, I assume, that this Fall through late Spring/early Summer school year thing with loooooong summer holiday is also a fairly recent (and arbitrary) historical occurrence. Why do we not have school organized by Birth year? It really has little to do with the needs of the working class. We all know who drove the long summer holiday agenda, right? Rich people who wanted to go somewhere nice when the weather got hot. Rich people pushed an agenda that the middle classes followed. I would say this is close to historical fact. So. If I was inclined to do something with significant social consequence I might push for our education system to follow the USSF. Move schools to birth year, increase the length of instructional time, and let's push for our kids to the best and the brightest in the entire industrialized world. Heck, in the whole universe! Yes you definately "do not get it". This is a massive change that is being instituted for no rational reason. To "get in line with the international scene" (their words) is not a good reason to upend GA whole soccer club system. There was a reason we switched to the school year for club soccer in the first place....it just worked much better! Now you have 8th graders that won't being playing at all for a season, maybe high school seniors that won't have a team, not to mention teams being separated, and this is better why??? Answer: it's not. Of course it is hard to argue with your irrefutable logic of "you don't like it walk". Usually private entities that provide a service do care what their customers think and would want to know what they felt about changes. Maybe GA Soccer could stand up to them? Doubt it. Thank you for your "history" lesson about school years and summer holidays, very enlightening. Also, in the future please tell me what else I'm supposed to be "outraged" about. Your noble condescension is so appreciative. I dont think 8th graders not having a season is going to be a problem. A spring season will be created for those kids...i think everything will be fine. There is NOTHING Ga soccer can do...this is not a GA thing, this is every state.
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Post by SoccerMom on Aug 18, 2015 14:33:55 GMT -5
OK, to summarize: Reasons against the change: Concerns with NL/RPL/ECNL teams getting split, roster continuity, etc Concerns with the 8th-9th grade issue Concerns with the 12th grade issue (may not be that big a deal; U18/U19 combined?) Uneven teams in adjacent years, ie: a club with top U14 team in RPL but only Athena B top team in U13 Disparate impact on all but the largest clubs Misalignment with high schools Misalignment with colleges Breaking up of teams that have played together for years (for those at large clubs this does happen; club hopping is not universal) Loss of camaraderie that may be the most important reason for playing for a large chunk of select players (this will be big one for my child) Absolutely no customer (parent/player) input on how to implement said change Absolutely no other option to 'vote with your feet' Reasons for the change: Alignment with most of the developed soccer world You're right, how could us rubes here in the sticks have any concern at all about this? If we're going to align with the rest of the world, why don't we just get it over with and adopt the metric system?!? If only we would start using the Decabet ( snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rdecabet.phtml) then surely we will start winning World Cups! I grew up on the metric system...I would love it if we switched
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Post by spectator on Aug 18, 2015 14:49:09 GMT -5
I dont think 8th graders not having a season is going to be a problem. A spring season will be created for those kids...i think everything will be fine. There is NOTHING Ga soccer can do...this is not a GA thing, this is every state. I haven't heard or read anything about a season being created for eighth grade kids and I seriously don't have faith that GA Soccer or USYS will do so.
It seems we have all agreed this will hurt smaller clubs - I have to wonder who was behind the push for the change - larger clubs or USYS?
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Post by Keeper on Aug 18, 2015 14:55:54 GMT -5
Ok one we did have a say in this. This change was unanimously approved by all US Soccer affliates, so our Ga Soccer reps who our clubs voted in agreed to this.
And yes, we the heck aren't we on metric?!?? No wonder the rest of the world dislikes us. Haha
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Post by guest on Aug 18, 2015 14:57:03 GMT -5
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Post by Soccerhouse on Aug 18, 2015 15:33:36 GMT -5
even west virginia is out in front of this one -- www.wvsoccer.net/assets/958/15/WVSA%20Memo%20on%20US%20Soccer%20Changes-FINAL.pdfI love this one! last time i checked age is continuous, so you will always have older players playing with younger players...... Are there any disadvantages to playing Birth Year? There are no disadvantages to playing Birth Year. It will eliminate the ability for older players to play down with younger players as existed under the Calendar Year system. If you believe older players playing against younger players is an advantage, then one could assume closing this loophole is a disadvantage. In the opinion of our WV Soccer state instructional staff, playing an older player against younger players is an unfair advantage if the younger players aren't ready, and it simply is not good for the development of that older player.
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Post by jash on Aug 18, 2015 17:23:07 GMT -5
even west virginia is out in front of this one -- www.wvsoccer.net/assets/958/15/WVSA%20Memo%20on%20US%20Soccer%20Changes-FINAL.pdfI love this one! last time i checked age is continuous, so you will always have older players playing with younger players...... Are there any disadvantages to playing Birth Year? There are no disadvantages to playing Birth Year. It will eliminate the ability for older players to play down with younger players as existed under the Calendar Year system. If you believe older players playing against younger players is an advantage, then one could assume closing this loophole is a disadvantage. In the opinion of our WV Soccer state instructional staff, playing an older player against younger players is an unfair advantage if the younger players aren't ready, and it simply is not good for the development of that older player. Oh man, this is the same thing that Puget Sound used... the same language. That might mean the language was given out by USSF? Seriously, if this is the level of intelligence that has produced this decision, we should all be very afraid.
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Post by stevieg on Aug 18, 2015 18:19:11 GMT -5
even west virginia is out in front of this one -- www.wvsoccer.net/assets/958/15/WVSA%20Memo%20on%20US%20Soccer%20Changes-FINAL.pdfI love this one! last time i checked age is continuous, so you will always have older players playing with younger players...... Are there any disadvantages to playing Birth Year? There are no disadvantages to playing Birth Year. It will eliminate the ability for older players to play down with younger players as existed under the Calendar Year system. If you believe older players playing against younger players is an advantage, then one could assume closing this loophole is a disadvantage. In the opinion of our WV Soccer state instructional staff, playing an older player against younger players is an unfair advantage if the younger players aren't ready, and it simply is not good for the development of that older player. What "ability for older players to play down with younger players" are they talking about? Whether its August-July or January-December, 12 months is 12 months.
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Post by sidelinemama on Aug 18, 2015 19:16:44 GMT -5
My daughter has an August birthday. I am not bothered by the change. I do have concern for our small club. We pulled the birthdates and right now for Girls Select, we are missing one age group. With the change, our club will be missing two....even with girls playing up. I do think that recreating all of the divisions will be a bit of a nightmare. Just like the RPL/ECNL teams that hold a spot for the club, the big clubs will be fine, but the smaller clubs that work so hard to get as high as they can are likely to lose such spots. Oh well. At the end of the day, it will shake out the way it shakes out. Each season has movement anyways and there is never any guarantee.
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Post by lowden587 on Aug 18, 2015 22:57:40 GMT -5
even west virginia is out in front of this one -- www.wvsoccer.net/assets/958/15/WVSA%20Memo%20on%20US%20Soccer%20Changes-FINAL.pdfI love this one! last time i checked age is continuous, so you will always have older players playing with younger players...... Are there any disadvantages to playing Birth Year? There are no disadvantages to playing Birth Year. It will eliminate the ability for older players to play down with younger players as existed under the Calendar Year system. If you believe older players playing against younger players is an advantage, then one could assume closing this loophole is a disadvantage. In the opinion of our WV Soccer state instructional staff, playing an older player against younger players is an unfair advantage if the younger players aren't ready, and it simply is not good for the development of that older player. Oh man, this is the same thing that Puget Sound used... the same language. That might mean the language was given out by USSF? Seriously, if this is the level of intelligence that has produced this decision, we should all be very afraid.
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Post by lowden587 on Aug 18, 2015 23:01:15 GMT -5
Absolutely incredible that USSF is giving out the same boilerplate response to each states soccer federation to use in selling this "wonderful" idea. The propaganda machine is in full form.
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Post by rifle on Aug 19, 2015 5:45:06 GMT -5
Fair points all around.
Personally, I'm not worried at all. I've seen teams totally churned from season to season. It happens every year, especially in 13+ ages. Parents freak out about "what if" but kids adapt remarkably fast.
Friendships endure if they are worth it. Otherwise, they don't. It's just a game.
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Post by rifle on Aug 19, 2015 5:46:04 GMT -5
Absolutely incredible that USSF is giving out the same boilerplate response to each states soccer federation to use in selling this "wonderful" idea. The propaganda machine is in full form. Why wouldn't it? Better to have one message than 50 different messages.
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