OT- The dirt sandwich of youth basketball

I've not heard of that, but that's why some non-school affiliated leagues are a good idea. They go by age, not grade.

In reality, a small percentage of these kids will even get sniffed by colleges. Furthermore, I feel like college recruiters recruit for potential as much as anything else, and age doesn't really factor into that.

In my opinion, any parent putting athletics over academics is doing their kid a disservice considering the chances of him making a living, or even paying for college through sports. Your son can laugh at these losers all the way to the bank.

has a group that plays all of their kids down by 2 years (football goes by weight not age) so that 10 year olds are playing 8 year olds, 12 year olds play 10 year olds etc.

So they win all of the championships in the smaller leagues (Fly, Mighty Might, Pee Wee) but the midget gets creamed because they are all playing down.

All their kids actually LOSE 2 years of experience because they are starting later (10 instead of 8).

Sad commentary on the other coach.
I am not sure what your point was in the following quote. What did the situation demand?

"My son is new to this school (christian school), so he didn't do what the situation really demanded but I could tell he was coming close."

Clearly these parents don't really have thier kids best interests at heart or don't know what is right. I am never one for running up the score, I haven't ever liked it. I don't see how beating on kids younger than you is really that big of a victory. I have my kids playing in sports for the fun and social aspects of it (they are pretty young still). I really don't expect them to be all stars, that is too much to put on thier shoulders.

take a kindergarten redshirt for the jv team

This fat unathletic kid did that and was held back in 8 grade just so he could make the freshman basketball team. That kid and his dad are in denial. He didnt even play much this. Anyways that practive happens alot but most kids arent good enough to do anything special.
Just parents in denial

There was a kid in my high school who was held back in 8th grade solely for basketball reasons. He ended up walking on at Purdue so maybe it helped. That's the only experience I have with it but my friend at school says that in Oklahoma where he is from, it is very common for people to do that for football. We are in the same grade and he is a 1 1/2 older than me. That doesn't matter much when you are in your 20's but a 14 yr old over a 12 yr old or an 18 yr old over a 16 yr old is huge.

got "held" back and was a year older than most kids in his grade.

What if you are legitimately on the cut-off. In Michigan I think that it's in November and since my birthday is the 17th my parents were given the choice in pre-school if they wanted me to stay with my friends who were all younger or to go ahead to the older grade.

Would this also be "unfair" since I've always been about a year ahead of everyone because then it would also be very unfair for me to go a year older and to play with all of the kids who were a year older than me.

The Malcolm Gladwell book "Outliers" touches on this kind of thing in a positive way - the advantage in age is a HUGE thing when kids are younger - the big example he uses is Junior hockey players in Canada, a vast majority of them are born in January - March, with almost no one in December.

Hockey's cutoff date in Canada is Jan 1, so kids born in early January are almost a year older than kids born in December, so the Tryouts for say "94's" would pit kids born in January 94 against kids born in December 94, who are almost a year younger. Yeah, doesn't matter as much when you're older, but a 7 year old vs. a 6 year old can be a big deal even in terms of size and motor skills.

RE: Bouje - That's Gladwell's point, that age is a HUGE advantage in youth sports, often due to no fault of the child - its their birthday coupled with the league/region/whatever cut off date.

That said, these parents are just short-changing their kids. At least the one parent had it right - that it was classless and that they are teaching their kids the wrong thing.

Good luck in the future...

The Clausen parents held all of their kids back two years, to gain an advantage in sports. Jimmah was 20 as a freshman.

I'm surprised that we don't have quarterbacks taking a year off between high school and college to work on their skills with a paid coach.

If people want to give their kids a competitive advantage in sports, holding kids back in school is the wrong way to go.

You want to put your kids in a situation to compete against the best with good coaching. Dominating other young players that are physically inferior is not the way to develop athletes.

The MHSAA has rules that remove the advantage of this practice. From mhsaa.com:

To participate in MHSAA tournament sponsored sports a student must be under 19 years of age except that a student who turns 19 on or after Sept. 1 of a current school year is eligible for the balance of that school year.

This is essentially in line with the state of Michigan practices for enrollment in kindergarten. So if you hold a kid back for pure sports reasons, it means that he cannot compete for his high school in his senior season. I don't know how that affects AAU and other non-MHSAA affiliated sports teams.

I will say this: If you are holding back your kid for sports reasons, the only reason he is "good" then, is usually a man-against-boys effect that will not persist to the next level. [I guess I just re-stated what FryGoBlue3 said...but it still is true. +1 Fry.]

In Michigan, a parent can't "hold back" a kid just for the hell of it.

There has to be documented proof that the kid is ACADEMICALY deficiant in reading and math. Basically the kid has to have a documented learning disabilty in order for the school to allow him/her to repeat a grade.

Wanting your kid to dominate youth football isn't a valid reason :)

http://www.slate.com/id/2188866/

It's a baseball thing too (not holding back, but how age/dob matters). I have an August birthday, but "played up" in order to play with friends in the same grade. Little did I know this would cost me a chance to be Justin Verlander.

My parents sent me to two years of pre-school (one was a typical pre-school, the other a "pre-kindergarten") since my birthday is July 5 simply for maturity/academic reasons. They wanted to make sure I was ready for school. I've always been old for my grade, though there were plenty of us at my HS that were in the same boat. I even knew someone in my grade with a birthday at the beginning of June. Once I got to U-M, I realized this isn't as common in other parts of the country. Of course, I was never good at sports that required physical size (the football team didn't find need for 5'10", 130 lb skin and bones types, so I played golf and tennis), but I can see how this would be an advantage for some.

At the school my kids go to they play up in basketball. For instance, this year my daughter is in 3rd grade and they play in 2 leagues one is a 3rd grade league and one is a 4th grade league. This is their 3rd year playing as well. Guess which league they won the regular season in? The 4th grade league, they went undefeated, mostly due to playing up every year, playing summer league and going to summer camp. But boy did they take their lumps in 1st grade and even last year in 2nd grade.
They could only do one league playoff for some odd reason so they're doing the 4th grade. All they have to win is 2 more games and they'll be in the championship.

If you watch the documentary on their football team this is a pretty common practice there. I personally think that parents put way too much priority on youth sports. Most times you really don't know what a kid can do until he gets to High School. I have three kids and my oldest, who is nine, plays 4 different sports and has played at least 6 in organized leagues. He very successful in swimming (going to swim in the state meet this weekend) and also a very solid athelete in all of the other sports. My wife and I really believe in allowing him to decide what he wants to play and to allow him to push himself as far as he wants to go. I am astonished when talking with other parents who chastise my wife and I for not pushing him into one of the sports so he could really be a "superstar". I don't get this fascination with having a child who is a superstar at age 10. In what world does that equate to success in life or in a lesser extent a superstar in college. It is a joke what some are willing to achieve this super stardom of little league sports.

What a lack of class. Feel bad for you and your son.