Originally Posted by aeh
Originally Posted by polarbear
no matter how much of a soccer prodigy you are at 9, you can't play on a team with 12 year olds.

polarbear

Not universally true. Rec programs are usually lock-step for age, but in competitive soccer, I know quite a few children who "play up" in our region (not just our specific community, but surrounding ones as well). You can't be "held back" in team sports, because of very strict reverse age cutoffs that come down from the national youth sports organizations, but you can play with older kids, if you can make the team. Plus there are all the club soccer teams, who actively recruit (read, poach) the best community players into very intense training.

That's interesting aeh! My kids have only played rec soccer, and I haven't had friends with kids who "played up", so I didn't realize you could on comp teams. I've definitely heard of poaching though lol smile

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I think the primary factor in soccer inequity is actually socioeconomic, as nearly everything is pay-to-play these days, versus the school-based, subsidized teams that once predominated among all school-age athletic programs.

Sadly this seems to be true for most kids' sports, at least in my little corner of the US. There are sports programs in our high schools still, but for a kid to participate in a team sport (and individual sports like gymnastics and swimming) before high school require families to be able to pay for their children to participate - and some of the sports are outrageously expensive. Even the sports that don't have a high cost require transportation and having a parent or other adult who wants to be sure you have the chance to participate - so a child from a lower SES family where both parents work or there's only one parent or the child is being raised by grandparents or the parents are checked out... has no opportunity to participate. Things like ice skating, skiing, etc cost nothing where we live - but you have to have a small amount of equipment and you have to be able to get to where you can participate.

polarbear