Our Freshman Are Grown Men...

[PooPopsBaldHead]

In more ways than one... Was just looking through bios and our young players are not as young as I would expect. Have parents been holding kids back for athletics?

Here are the freshman:

Gray Bane True Freshman turned 20 in January
Aaron Downs True Freshman turns 20 in March
Taylor Montiel True Freshman turns 20 in July
Cole Cheatham True Freshman will turn 19 in mid July


A few sophomores in the same boat:

Jackson Fristoe True Soph turns 21 next week.
Kellum Clark True Soph turns 21 in April
Lane Forsythe True Soph is still 19 until May.


I don't assume we have 5 underclassmen on the team that were held back academically. If it is for sports, it's hard to completely knock it's since they are all playing SEC baseball, but it's going to hurt draft status at least a little you imagine. Or maybe they were just wild *** 5 year olds not ready for Kindergarten.

Is this pretty common or just a bit of randomness?

 

[johnson86-1]

In more ways than one... Was just looking through bios and our young players are not as young as I would expect. Have parents been holding kids back for athletics?

Here are the freshman:

Gray Bane True Freshman turned 20 in January
Aaron Downs True Freshman turns 20 in March
Taylor Montiel True Freshman turns 20 in July
Cole Cheatham True Freshman will turn 19 in mid July


A few sophomores in the same boat:

Jackson Fristoe True Soph turns 21 next week.
Kellum Clark True Soph turns 21 in April
Lane Forsythe True Soph is still 19 until May.


I don't assume we have 5 underclassmen on the team that were held back academically. If it is for sports, it's hard to completely knock it's since they are all playing SEC baseball, but it's going to hurt draft status at least a little you imagine. Or maybe they were just wild *** 5 year olds not ready for Kindergarten.

Is this pretty common or just a bit of randomness?

It’s not uncommon. Parents do do it for sports but it also is good for a lot of boys to get an extra year of maturity.

 

[mcdawg22]

Wouldn’t turning 19 in mid July make them young?

 

[dog12]

It’s not uncommon. Parents do do it for sports but it also is good for a lot of boys to get an extra year of maturity.

Around here (Washington DC suburbs), some parents do it for their daughters to give them an advantage in lacrosse.

The local youth girls lacrosse leagues and travel teams are based on grade or graduation year (not age).

 

[philduckworth]

It’s not uncommon. Parents do do it for sports but it also is good for a lot of boys to get an extra year of maturity.

It's mainly for sports. Puts parents in a tough spot. Kind of like the steriod era. You might not have wanted to do steriods, but you had to b/c there was no regulation against it.

Perfect Game, USSSA, etc allow kids that are held back to play with their graduating class. It used to be based on age.

 

[PooPopsBaldHead]

Yes. I was using Cheatham and Forsythe as comps, but I didn't make that clear.

I have a summer birthday myself and graduated when I was 17. Thinking back to how much different everything would have been if I had been held back. Seems like a huge advantage.

 

[onewoof]

Analysis on success of hockey players in Canada showed that the older boys born in January always were the best

 

[mcdawg22]

Yes. I was using Cheatham and Forsythe as comps, but I didn't make that clear.

I have a summer birthday myself and graduated when I was 17. Thinking back to how much different everything would have been if I had been held back. Seems like a huge advantage.

Me too. I couldn’t even get into bars going into my freshman year. I celebrated my 18th birthday at State which was great, but I had to wait to get my snowshoot from PJs in Delta, LA.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

I turned 18 in Starkville in October my freshman year.

 

[wsjmsu75]

I also turned 18 in my freshman year in November of 1970. Not at State though. I was at a different school, a very different school actually, and then transferred to MSU the next year.

 

[tbaydog]

In the early 70ies, me and my brother both were held back in the 8th grade, he went on to play college basketball, I had blown knee Junior year. Never regretted.............

 

[57stratdawg]

One of the Freak’onomics books talks about July & August being the most common birthdays among MLB players. The extra growth gave them a greater chance of being chosen to participate in Select Leagues, giving them higher exposure to elite coaching, added visibility, etc..

Of course, by far the best indication that a child will ultimately become a profession athlete is…

Spoiler

having a professional athlete as a parent

 

[philduckworth]

yeah, that doesn't matter any more b/c kids just get held back. I think the ideal birthdate for a baseball player is January and then hold them back.

 

[dickiedawg]

It won’t hurt draft status. They are often draft eligible as sophomores.

 

[MetEdDawg]

Not uncommon for a multitude of reasons. Boys get held back early on more so than girls due to maturity.

But the big thing parents are doing now is holding back in 6th grade. Once you get to 7th grade, your eligibility clock starts ticking. So you are seeing more and more parents hold back in 6th grade, especially if grades are borderline and your kid is a legit athlete.

 

[philduckworth]

Not uncommon for a multitude of reasons. Boys get held back early on more so than girls due to maturity.

But the big thing parents are doing now is holding back in 6th grade. Once you get to 7th grade, your eligibility clock starts ticking. So you are seeing more and more parents hold back in 6th grade, especially if grades are borderline and your kid is a legit athlete.

I see a lot of 8th graders repeating 8th grade as well. Some parents are going ahead and holding back in Kindergarten now.

 

[SteelCurtain74]

Gladwell's book, Outliers, addressed this specifically with hockey but the premise still holds.

My daughter has a September birthday and I can see it on her soccer team. She is one of the youngest on her team and even though she is athletic, there is a difference with the girls on her team that are 6-8 months older.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Pretty much all youth baseball leagues/organizations around here are May 1 - April 30, which I never understood, because school is usually August 1 - July 30, or some variant. They obviously did that in order for some kids to be held back. I don't know when the 'grade' part kicks in with PG or the others, like some have mentioned here. But these guys getting held back from January/February to the next year, damn, that's pretty old. Again, I could see May, June and especially July and August. I think it's safe to say that's done to give them an added advantage.

Funny - football around here doesn't allow that, and I don't think basketball does either. Your age is what it is.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

If Gladwell were from the South, he'd be talking about football and baseball. He's Canadian, so chatting about hockey is natural to him.