Age, grade, emotional maturity, athletic ability, and physical development are all variables that should be addressed independently by the parents. If little Johnny is not emotionally or academically mature enough to begin school with everyone else his age, then by all means hold him back a year until he is ready if it will help. This, however, should have no bearing on what group he plays aau basketball for. I know several gifted athletes who failed to ever mature mentally. Why not separate school and aau altogether. They have no relationship. You go to school by their rules and play school ball by their rules. As parents you make educational decisions that work within the rules of the school. Why should this carry over into a summer sport? Make AAU age based and it eliminates all of the confusion with holdbacks and so forth. There should never be an athletic holdback except in college if they want to redshirt you. So if you want to hold your child back to mature more for educational purposes, then by all means do so, but realize that they would be required to play against their age in summer ball. If you are doing it to give them a better chance at playing a sport, then you are not really comparing apples to apples are you?

And that is what AAU did this past year. They went to an all age based system and lost a lot of money by doing so. That is why they are offering both an age and grade option this year. If you want to play with your age do so. Those that chose to play with their grade can make that choice too.

I think AAU should have kept it age based and moved the cut off date to Jan. 1st instead of Sept. 1st. That would have solved a lot of the problems. But that's just my opinion.

I agree. My son has always played on his grade and my grade older team as well. You could put him on a grade below his and maturity and size wise he wouldnt stand out. lol AAU is a thing of the past but If they are gonna make it I wish they would just pick something and go with it. I do think age based is the best choice for the kids. For profit it has proved otherwise.

Age, grade, emotional maturity, athletic ability, and physical development are all variables that should be addressed independently by the parents. If little Johnny is not emotionally or academically mature enough to begin school with everyone else his age, then by all means hold him back a year until he is ready if it will help. This, however, should have no bearing on what group he plays aau basketball for. I know several gifted athletes who failed to ever mature mentally. Why not separate school and aau altogether. They have no relationship. You go to school by their rules and play school ball by their rules. As parents you make educational decisions that work within the rules of the school. Why should this carry over into a summer sport? Make AAU age based and it eliminates all of the confusion with holdbacks and so forth. There should never be an athletic holdback except in college if they want to redshirt you. So if you want to hold your child back to mature more for educational purposes, then by all means do so, but realize that they would be required to play against their age in summer ball. If you are doing it to give them a better chance at playing a sport, then you are not really comparing apples to apples are you?

You say he should be required to play against his age and I agree but what is his age? He is 14 when aau begins but will turn 15 before its over. The problem to me is aau is using age based but still using school cut off dates(which are for grade based play) for age cut off on age based play. If any that makes sense. lol

P.S. I really don't care just tell me the rules and lets go play. I just like to argue.lol

P.S. I really don't care just tell me the rules and lets go play. I just like to argue.lol

 

Best post on the thread.

Best post on the thread.

 

That's the only choice available. Let's play!!

You say he should be required to play against his age and I agree but what is his age? He is 14 when aau begins but will turn 15 before its over. The problem to me is aau is using age based but still using school cut off dates(which are for grade based play) for age cut off on age based play. If any that makes sense. lol

 

US Youth Soccer has mandated that beginning next year, they are going to begin the phasing in of a new age division. Instead of basing it off of a school year calendar, it will go by year of birth. You will have 8th graders playing with 7th graders and so on. I'm not sure that that is better.

US Youth Soccer has mandated that beginning next year, they are going to begin the phasing in of a new age division. Instead of basing it off of a school year calendar, it will go by year of birth. You will have 8th graders playing with 7th graders and so on. I'm not sure that that is better.

 

I'm not sure either, but I wish every sport would pick the same date and if it is January 1st that is fine. I understand sports are seasonal I just wish I could grab 10-12 kids around age 5 and have them play all sports together until they started figuring out what they really want to play or if sports just isn't for them. My oldest was born in late November so January 1st would benefit him playing against older/better kids, but I get that some wouldn't benefit from that.

I've come to realize that middle school sports really don't matter that much anyway. If it makes you win more games by having older kids, who cares. High school is what matters..