Posted on 12/07/2010 4:32:16 AM PST by DemforBush
Adam Sisson is a high school senior. The teenager has spent his entire life dreaming of his senior seasons in high school sports, where he expected to be a star for the Eastern Montgomery (Va.) High football, basketball and baseball teams. Then, just days before his final high school year began, Sisson was given a shock: He was told that he was too old to play in Virginia high school sports by exactly 12 hours...
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That's the truth. We had a talented young man in my son's Little League. His parents decided to sent him to a local private high school with a top-rated varsity baseball program.
In the middle of his sophomore season, he suddenly showed up at our public HS and got a starting position on the varsity team, benching kids who had showed up at the pre-season drills and never missed a practice. Turns out he wasn't getting the playtime at the private HS, so his parents switched him to our pubic HS mid-season. And the rules were bent significantly so he could join and grab a starting position mid-season. That's when I really learned about HS sports politics and the way the game is really played.
If this kid truly spent his entire life, dreaming of his senior year sports triumphs, I am a rutabaga.
I too played my senior year as a 16-17 yr old. Set a state record in the pole vault, won two state championships in the 110m hurdles and pole vault and captained the team to the state title. I was also all-state in soccer the previous fall. Now what if I were two whole years older at 18-19 competing against the same competition???
Regardless, if this kid is so good, he should be able to walk-on in college and do fine. No real loss other than the “memories”. Rules are rules.
It's worth noting that the example you cited specifically involves Canadian players, since Canada differs a lot from the U.S. and other countries in that there is no connection between their youth hockey system and their schools . . . so their age-based system for different tiers is based on a calendar year rather than on the academic year.
The Canadian system has come under a lot of criticism over the years for this, and a lot of players, coaches and others involved in hockey have called for a size-based or talent-based system of organizing youth hockey in place of the pure age-based system they have now. I think there's a lot of sense in what they're proposing.
It might or might not be the purpose of government schools, but it is certainly not the purpose of the professional-sports-preparatory program called "high school football."
Then you are in favor of the practice of 'holding back' promising atheletes so they can put up a mature man at the age of 22 against 16 year olds.
See my #19
He and his family had their eyes on the scouts in the stands and the colleges that would be recruiting him.
Oh well, now that the colleges know he is a cheat they won’t be making him any offers. \s
High school football is looked upon by the welfare-class as their ticket to fame and fortune.
It's not about sportsmanship.
My dad started school a year early, made the varsity football team when he still wore ‘knickerbocker’ pants, because his dad did not allow his sons to wear long pants until they were sixteen. One of the worst moments of my dad’s youth was getting off the bus to go into the locker room of a rival school and having the kids laugh at his short pants.
You can imagine how fired up he was on the field, though!
He made the All-Maryland team in his senior year when he was sixteen.
What's becoming more and more clear to me over time is that these sports programs should be run completely independently of schools. In fact, I think we're starting to see a serious move towards this kind of paradigm right now.
An interesting option would be to allow junior-high kids to play high school sports if they fit the age requirements. This would enable them to get four years of eligibility regardless of what their personal circumstances are.
I think that runs into the issue of how many are hoping to go to college on athletic scholarships. A year away from competition makes it hard to be recruited and would put someone far behind competition wise. I know academics are the primary concern, but there are a lot of people who mostly do what they have to in the classroom to get to play.
When I went to junior high there were students too old to play in high school. Since they couldn’t make the grades to the next level, they were stuck in junior high until they gave up and dropped out.
I played in a tiered system little league program, AA was 8 years old, AAA was 9 years old to 11, if you good enough at 9 you could be drafted into the Major League (I was drafted at 10) which ran until 13, Senior league ball was until age 16, HS baseball went until Graduation (didn’t matter if you turned 19 your Sr year at all), so having a 13 year old pitching to a 10 or 11 year old was normal where I grew up.
By the time you reach HS, its all about winning.
The article indicated that interest in soccer among kids in New Jersey isn't declining -- they're just migrating to private training programs and traveling club teams instead of playing in high school.
Education can only inspire a boy to become a man. It is how he lives his life during this period that makes him into a man. Boy Scouts is better than HS athletics for making of a man.
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