We hit four tournaments this summer and unfortunately the summer has been busy enough that I haven't had a chance to post reviews. So I'm going to try to get through them soon.
First up is Lehigh Laxfest. This was my second time at this tournament.
Lehigh Laxfest does a lacrosse tournament about as well as any I have seen. We had horrendous weather this year but we can't blame that on the organizers.
The facility at Lehigh is really good. Some of the fields are a little sloped but few places have so many fields available within a short walk. Obviously, the rain didn't help the conditions of the fields at all but again that cannot be helped.
Traffic is a definite problem at Lehigh though. You will sit in some traffic on the way in and the way out. There just aren't many roads in or out of the place.
I love the play format of Lehigh Laxfest. For each division, the organizers make a bracket and your opponent is based upon the result of your games thus far. Winners play winners and losers play losers so you'll be playing a team with your same record most of the day. It seems to me that they organize the teams based upon geography so that you won't be playing a neighboring team right away. The great part about this format is that by the third game or so, you are pretty much guaranteed to be playing an appropriate opponent for your team regardless of how strong or weak you are. The last two teams at 4-0 play an extra game at the end of the day for the tournament championship but almost everyone ends up at 3-1, 2-2, or 1-3.
Game format was 20-minute halves and run by horns. Excellent format. Works fine. I have one criticism which is that they went to Braveheart for overtime. I am a big fan of Lineheart instead.
The level of play was pretty high but with the tournament format any team will end up playing appropriate teams by the afternoon.
The concessions were pretty good and varied. Since grills were allowed, we did a tailgate instead. This is a big issue for me. I seriously doubt that I ever will give a tournament a grade above a B+ unless grills are allowed.
I would give the tournament an A- overall. Adopt Lineheart next year and there is a good chance this becomes an A.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Why We Wish Youth Lacrosse Would Adopt A Single Age Standard --- And Why It's Harder Than It Seems
It's a summertime tournament. A team from Pennsylvania is playing against a team from New Jersey. The team from New Jersey is more skilled but the team from Pennsylvania is stronger and more athletic. The team from Pennsylvania wins with a relatively comfortable margin. A few years later, when we compare where the players are being recruited, the players from the team from New Jersey have better prospects than the players from the team from Pennsylvania.
So what happened?
This was the result of different states having different systems of age classification. New Jersey teams generally use a grade-based system. Pennsylvania teams generally use an age-based system. So, just to use a simple example, if a team full of sixth graders from New Jersey plays against a U-13 team from Pennsylvania based upon a January 1 cutoff, the U-13 team will be on-average sixth months older than the team from New Jersey. Why? Because New Jersey schools generally use a summer date as their birthday cutoff for school grades. At the middle-school level, as the variable ages of puberty onset wreak havoc in competitive balance and athletic development, an average of sixth months of additional maturity is huge.
So what's the solution? Ideally, the sport would adopt a single standard cutoff date and we could run every competition on an age basis. Unfortunately, picking which date to use is a challenge that surely will upset someone somewhere. Whichever date we choose, it will divide up a grade in some school district because different districts use different cutoff dates. That means that half of kids in one grade will be playing at one level and the rest at another for their entire youth sports career. Youth soccer, for example, generally uses a July 31 cutoff date. A summer cutoff date chops up grades in school districts that use a January 1 cutoff date. Hockey tends to use a January 1 cutoff date which divides up grades in schools that use a summer birthday cutoff. These divisions can be particularly difficult when we get to high school sports. When half a grade has spent their entire athletic career playing against one level of competition and the the rest played against a different level, there can be a significant effect as the athletes adjust.
To the extent that lacrosse uses an age cutoff, it usually is January 1. States like New Jersey of course simply reject the use of January 1 and adopt a grade-based system rather than having a date imposed by "outsiders" goof up the formation of their teams. Of course, if we adopt July 31, one would expect the areas in which January 1 is the typical school cutoff to reject the new age-based system as well.
As expected given what I have discussed here, I do not have a simple solution. If we are going to adopt a single date as a cutoff, I imagine that July 31 will be more appropriate in the short run because most of the lacrosse hotbed states probably use a summer date as their school grade cutoff. In the long run, however, the expansion of lacrosse will hit more states that use a January 1 cutoff and programs in those states might not appreciate the arbitrary decision from whatever handful of states that enacted the decision before lacrosse became a truly national sport.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts and what date your schools systems use wherever you live.
So what happened?
This was the result of different states having different systems of age classification. New Jersey teams generally use a grade-based system. Pennsylvania teams generally use an age-based system. So, just to use a simple example, if a team full of sixth graders from New Jersey plays against a U-13 team from Pennsylvania based upon a January 1 cutoff, the U-13 team will be on-average sixth months older than the team from New Jersey. Why? Because New Jersey schools generally use a summer date as their birthday cutoff for school grades. At the middle-school level, as the variable ages of puberty onset wreak havoc in competitive balance and athletic development, an average of sixth months of additional maturity is huge.
So what's the solution? Ideally, the sport would adopt a single standard cutoff date and we could run every competition on an age basis. Unfortunately, picking which date to use is a challenge that surely will upset someone somewhere. Whichever date we choose, it will divide up a grade in some school district because different districts use different cutoff dates. That means that half of kids in one grade will be playing at one level and the rest at another for their entire youth sports career. Youth soccer, for example, generally uses a July 31 cutoff date. A summer cutoff date chops up grades in school districts that use a January 1 cutoff date. Hockey tends to use a January 1 cutoff date which divides up grades in schools that use a summer birthday cutoff. These divisions can be particularly difficult when we get to high school sports. When half a grade has spent their entire athletic career playing against one level of competition and the the rest played against a different level, there can be a significant effect as the athletes adjust.
To the extent that lacrosse uses an age cutoff, it usually is January 1. States like New Jersey of course simply reject the use of January 1 and adopt a grade-based system rather than having a date imposed by "outsiders" goof up the formation of their teams. Of course, if we adopt July 31, one would expect the areas in which January 1 is the typical school cutoff to reject the new age-based system as well.
As expected given what I have discussed here, I do not have a simple solution. If we are going to adopt a single date as a cutoff, I imagine that July 31 will be more appropriate in the short run because most of the lacrosse hotbed states probably use a summer date as their school grade cutoff. In the long run, however, the expansion of lacrosse will hit more states that use a January 1 cutoff and programs in those states might not appreciate the arbitrary decision from whatever handful of states that enacted the decision before lacrosse became a truly national sport.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts and what date your schools systems use wherever you live.
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