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Discussion Topic: Ages of HS athletes
Ethan Moore added to this discussion on October 15, 2020
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Fellas - I'm not the old man yelling at people to get off my lawn. I don't care what choices people make with their own kids, I know we all want what is best for our families.
However, viewing the ages of the athletes during Who's Number 1 on FLO was pretty staggering.
I also spoke to a good friend of mine in the IL wrestling community who shared that is more than common for youth wrestlers to take a 'RS' year in JH.
The output is 19 year old kids wrestling in HS.
How do you feel about this? I feel that there should be some age restriction legislated by HS athletic associations to monitor this, as it is such a clear advantage.
I saw David Taylor also noticed, as he tweeted 'I was 17 when I started college...'
I am going to root hard for Paddy Gallagher as a Buckeye and he and his family are clearly doing things well within the rules, but Flo showed him as a 19 year old senior. In September. He would be almost 2 years older than many of the other seniors.
To me, this is not an equitable situation.
So while I've never cared about redshirts in JH, or transfers, or recruiting, etc. When you see those ages stare you in the face, I feel it's staggering and something should be done to address the clear advantage (or disadvantage) it provides.
Am I just getting old?
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Discussion Topic: Ages of HS athletes
Jeff Streu added to this discussion on October 15, 2020
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Quote from Ethan Moore's post:
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"Fellas - I'm not the old man yelling at people to get off my lawn. I don't care what choices people make with their own kids, I know we all want what is best for our families.
However, viewing the ages of the athletes during Who's Number 1 on FLO was pretty staggering.
I also spoke to a good friend of mine in the IL wrestling community who shared that is more than common for youth wrestlers to take a 'RS' year in JH.
The output is 19 year old kids wrestling in HS.
How do you feel about this? I feel that there should be some age restriction legislated by HS athletic associations to monitor this, as it is such a clear advantage.
I saw David Taylor also noticed, as he tweeted 'I was 17 when I started college...'
I am going to root hard for Paddy Gallagher as a Buckeye and he and his family are clearly doing things well within the rules, but Flo showed him as a 19 year old senior. In September. He would be almost 2 years older than many of the other seniors.
To me, this is not an equitable situation.
So while I've never cared about redshirts in JH, or transfers, or recruiting, etc. When you see those ages stare you in the face, I feel it's staggering and something should be done to address the clear advantage (or disadvantage) it provides.
Am I just getting old?"
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I share your thoughts to a certain extent. I agree that it gives older athletes an advantage, but as long as an athlete is younger than the limit then it's technically within the rules. (I think I heard that they can't turn 20 during their senior season? I think for Fargo they can't turn 20 before Sept. 1st.) I think the original intent of the rule - to accommodate kids that were held back a year for non-sports reasons - was good, but we all know some people take advantage of it.
Obviously we didn't have Fargo this year, but the previous few years I looked through the Finalist bios to see just how many were held back a year. Each state's school system may have different cutoffs, but I think it was roughly half of the Freestyle finalists had been held back, almost as many of the Greco finalists, and a handful of the Women's finalists.
For the record, David Taylor was 18 when he started college, not 17, as his Team USA bio says he was born 12/05/90 and he graduated HS in '09. But I get his point since he was not held back.
I loved watching Logan Stieber compete, but it's worth noting that he was 21 when he won his first NCAA title and 24 when he won his fourth (born 01/24/91, graduated HS in '10). I'm not trying to single Logan out, as I know he's not the only wrestler who was that age in their Redshirt Freshman year.
A few years ago Mitch Hull wrote an article arguing Lee Kemp as USA's GOAT: https://www.wiwrestling.com/who-is-wrestlings-greatest-of-all-time-by-mitch-hull/. One of his quotes was: "Kemp was 17 years old when he entered College and 21 when he graduated. Now days there are sophomores that are 21." Kemp was born 12/24/56, graduating in '74 and '78.
In general I'm not a fan of kids being held back for athletic reasons, but I try not to judge too much since I don't definitively know why each kid was held back (or started kindergarten late).
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Discussion Topic: Ages of HS athletes
Jared Ball added to this discussion on October 18, 2020
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Not to get philosophical about the discussion, but I draw a connection with some studies I read in a book not too long ago. It may have been Freakonomics or one of the Malcom Gladwell books, I can’t recall specifically. The why behind this is pretty evident. It has to do with physical maturity and development. Even though he was older, recall that Logan was still barely 100lbs as a freshman in high school. I’m sure his parents, like many others, had invested thousands of dollars and hours into his preparation, and wanted to maximize this chances of earning a scholarship.
In the study it correlated the birth months of professional hockey players. On average the vast majority of professional hockey players in the study were born earlier in their birth years. The logic being that being born earlier gave those athletes a physical maturity advantage. More physical mature athletes are theoretically slightly stronger and slightly faster than their peers. As a result they get selected for all star teams, club teams, etc at a higher rate. This, according to the study, suggests that they get more attention from coaches and ultimately better coaching as well. They then move quicker up the competitive scale.
Now, I think I’ve raised this argument before on here, and I’m not sure you could wholely argue all facets of this study with wrestling, but as long as there have been laws, rules, etc there have and will be people who try to figure ways around them. Ask yourself this question, if you have a son who displays an exceptional talent in something like wrestling would you consider holding them back a year to increase their odds of greater success down the road? It’s a gamble, but that’s how you get to 21 year old Logan and Bo Jordan. Could you make the same claim about academics? Is it fair or equitable for someone who had parents well off enough to pay for high end pre schooling, tutoring, private school, etc. I don’t really have much of an opinion on this, but it’s fun to discuss.
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Discussion Topic: Ages of HS athletes
Eric Jaynes added to this discussion on October 18, 2020
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Outliers was the book you’re referencing.
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