[Alberta's Child]

I can sympathize with someone in a position like this, but he's got nothing to complain about as far as the rules are concerned. The rules regarding age limits are there for a reason -- and no matter what the "hardship" in question may be, there's no way in hell a 19 year-old should be allowed to play high school sports.

FWIW, many of the state high school athletic associations that imposed rules like this did so to address legitimate concerns about parents who deliberately kept their kids back in the earlier grades just so they could dominate high school sports teams.

[maica]

Malcolm Gladwell, of Freakonomics fame, wrote Outliers to describe how influences outside of the control of an individual help to lead to success. One of the chapters was about the birthdays of hockey players. A huge percentage of NHL players were born in January, February or March. This can be tracked back to the fact that the age-group cutoff for youth hockey teams was December 31. So coaches in all the leagues had boys who could be almost a year older than some of their teammates. These boys generally were bigger, stronger, more able to improve with coaching, etc.

Birthdate is as uncontrolled by the individual as height or eye color, but it does have influence on the individual's life patterns.

Outliers

[Mr. Blonde]

there's no way in hell a 19 year-old should be allowed to play high school sports.

I think this would largely result in very few seniors playing sports, especially spring sports. I turned 19 in the middle of my main sport, wrestling. You think the rule should be once you hit 19 you are done?

I was held back but not for sports, the more important issue of I hadn't learned my numbers or letters in Kindergarten.