With the pre-academy teams going to birth year in 2011-12, when will the Classic League Board succumb to the Clubs if they request a change to birth year so their pre-academy teams won't be disadvantaged on the USYS calendar? If this were to happen, North Texas teams would be further disadvantaged at Regionals vs. other parts of the country that are not so impacted by Academy.

I'm concerned that the Board only hears opinions from "coaches" which is the voice of the Clubs, but, the Board never entertains a forum for parents. That would be like a city holding forums for zoning changes and only inviting the interests of the business, but, not allowing the citizens to have a voice.

Sorry, don't see how this would impact the "children" which is what the "parents" should be worried about.

allen04 wrote:Sorry, don't see how this would impact the "children" which is what the "parents" should be worried about.

The most notable change for the "children", as you put it, would be the breakup of teams that the "children" may have been playing with for the last 3-5 years. I see that as impacting the "children" and "parents". And that's just one of the impacts. From a competitive standpoint, there will be impact also.

IC75 wrote:I don't think classic league can change to birth year. This is a USYS rule and if you belong to USYS, as North Texas and classic league do you follow their rules.
As to the new pre-academy, if I am not mistaken, this is US Club Soccer, a competing group to USYS. US Club belongs to USSF but they are separate from USYS.

I guess that's one question...will pre-academy only compete against pre-academy AND not Classic League?

It is a good point though about the parents not having a voice with the league and NTX. Anyone willing to call them and start a parent forum with these entities?

On the USSF, USYS and USCB subject you can read that(which is just an insider opinion, not journalism) :
http://www.socceramerica.com/article/42202/us-club-soccer-has-changed-radically-in-10-years.html

Wouldn't it also impact the younger players in their senior year? They could lose a good portion of their team going off to college. Leaving them to find a new team for the last year.

gababa wrote:On the USSF, USYS and USCB subject you can read that(which is just an insider opinion, not journalism) :
http://www.socceramerica.com/article/42202/us-club-soccer-has-changed-radically-in-10-years.html

Great article, very informative on who the three entities are. Thanks gabs.

rdg wrote:Wouldn't it also impact the younger players in their senior year? They could lose a good portion of their team going off to college. Leaving them to find a new team for the last year.

This was discussed about a month ago here under the title academy leagues. You are 100% correct about the younger players. I posted below regarding the younger players.

When I played select in Dallas many many moons ago it was done by birth year as the academies and ODP are done. I believe it was this way until the early 90's. I graduated HS in 89 and it was birth year then. One downside going with birth year is with the older age groups. For example when I was a Junior in HS I was on a team made up about 13 Seniors and 3 Juniors. At the end of the season there were only 3 of us left with no team to play on. Made it almost impossible to find a team. At least this way you can stay with a group that you will graduate with your entire playing career.

If this were to be done. I think they would have to grandfather existing teams to what they are now and start the new "calender" teams at U4 or U5 so it would not mess up what is already in place for the teams out there now. I would say it would have to be an across the board Nation wide to avoid any issues with tournaments out of state regional play and so on. I think some parents will argue to keep it the way it is now so their child can remain the bigger older on the team instead of being challenged more in their birth year age group. Now some like me who have a smaller but older(birth year) kid on a team will just have to deal with our kids maybe being even a bit smaller than who they currently play against but they can do it for sure. I have a 99bb that was born in Nov of 98 and I wish it was birth year instead of school year from the start. Just my 2 cents worth

As was mentionde earlier, but worth saying again, this is not a CL decision. It is NTX.

That is great it is a USYS decision and not local!!!

IC75 wrote:As said earlier it is not NTX but United States Youth Soccer's decision.

Not really. USYSA has a policy that it says should apply to member state associations setting the age year at Aug 31. But, Rule 105 of that policy statement itself provides "A State Association may permit variances in Rules 104 and 205 of this policy in the best interest of developing the sport within the jurisdiction of the State Association." Rule 104 sets the age year, and Rule 205 sets the roster size limits.

NTSSA can change the age year and the roster requirements for play in the leagues it oversees and players it registers without USYSA changing the year start.

Even without NTSSA changing anything, it is always a good idea to check the hosting association rules when playing outside NTX.

I know of a NTX U-16 team that played a tournament in STX, won everything, but did not get the title because NTX and Classic allowed a roster of 22 and fielding all players for any game, but STX, while allowing a larger roster, only allowed a team to field 18 players for any specific game. A disgruntled coach noticed the team had been fielding 19 after the fact and complained.