All-Star Anyone Else Notice Alot Of 12 Year Old Flyers On The Floor?

[MRSPIGI]

This is very true... I also want to take this opportunity to re-iterate that I think we need to re-size these divisions for that exact reason. If you're building a small team to 14, 15, or 16 per team, and large to only 28 or 30 ish, you can produce more teams that are on-level. Say you have 6 level 4 youth kids in your entire program. If you only need 14 to be small, you're almost halfway there on majority skills. just saying lol

aha aha. You are hired!!!

 

[ShutItDown]

all ill say is, if a girl is 12 and has the caliber a senior athlete possesses, then they deserve to be on a senior team. if you want to put one in a pyramid, i would say find a place where her height makes sense...for example ua legacy. love them to death but can they please switch the girls in their final picture of the pyramid, the one girl is twice the little girls size.
and unlike the NBA, this sport shouldn't discriminate on size. not everyone can be the perfect, ideal size to be a senior flyer...which is what btw?

 

[John Butler]

I don't usually post on these boards. After all, when it comes to opinions, everyone has one and they usually are all over the place. As the parent of a child who is very small for her age, my opinion of course will be very biased. But I do think that if the athlete has earned a spot on the team and the coaches believe they should be there, then that's how it should be. I know my daughter looks small on her current team, but the truth is, she would look small on any team... probably even a junior team LOL! She's just very small. My family genetics I guess. I was very small almost until the end of high school. But one thing I will say, my daughter Gabi is a FIERCE flyer and she works hard for it! And she also works hard on her tumbling and other skills. She is one of the only girls on TG Semi throwing her double right now. I was very proud of her earning point on the team... but like I said... I'm a proud biased cheer dad!

I don't know about changing the ages for senior teams. My daughter is 13, but if she wasn't on this team, I guess she would have to cheer on the TG Open 5 team only because TG doesn't have a Jr. 5 team. I am glad she is on the Sr. team and I am very proud of her. She is mature for her age... even if she is the size of a peanut! I can see how some might be concerned about the maturity difference within the age ranges. But she works it and I am very proud of her!

 

[coach.elle]

I am currently involved in both All Star and High School cheer and have been noting the differences. High School has a strong emphasis on execution, while all star is more about the flash and difficulty (IMO). Personally i love them both. But i think the reason you don't see 7th grade fliers very often on high school teams is because they don't have as much body control. You can make the stunt happen, yes, but generally it looks shaky to me. All star is all about the height of the toss and the number of twists, all easier with smaller tops.

I coach at a high school team, and in order to build our new program up, we take 7th and 8th graders on Varsity (allowed in MN). But i try to make a point to put girls their age under them, or at least smaller girls. I think that this way, those 7th grade tops at least have to be tight to make the stunt work.

 

[The bow lady]

I must say, I did enjoy reading everyones posts. I was happy we could all agree to disagree. I feel it is unfortunate that we are losing a lot of talented lvl 5 flyers because they are maybe 120lbs. To younger and lighter athletes. I just think the older girls look neater. They have more appeal, with overall execution of the stunt. (to me on a sr. level) then the smaller, younger girls. I know most of the smaller (younger)girls are extremely talented, I just feel they should stay with in their age group and move up when they age out.

 

[F!ERCE]

So we do cater to the exception and place really young kids on senior teams, at the risk of possible burnout, more injury on less matured bodies, less appropriate social situations, and overall appeal of a routine?

While I agree that there are certainly some 12 year old anomalies, does it make sense to build our age grid around them? To drive, you have to be 16. To vote, you have to be 18. There are a few people who might be good drivers at 14 and some who are educated and reasonable enough to vote at that age, as well. But do we lower the age so those few can do what they're prepared for? No, because it's in far more people's best interest to keep it higher. On a far smaller scale, I believe the same concept should apply here.

This is not rhetorical, but do coaches most often choose their teams based on the athletes skill, or equal parts skill and readiness for a certain age division? I'd imagine it's mostly skill-based (could be wrong) and not always done with the athletes best physical and mental interest in mind (around here, we have a kinda biased crowd, because I'd venture to say that if a coach posts here, they probably have more knowledge and insight than the general "coaching public"). But in general, how are athletes chosen for a team?

 

[xtremeteal4life]

I am currently involved in both All Star and High School cheer and have been noting the differences. High School has a strong emphasis on execution, while all star is more about the flash and difficulty (IMO). Personally i love them both. But i think the reason you don't see 7th grade fliers very often on high school teams is because they don't have as much body control. You can make the stunt happen, yes, but generally it looks shaky to me. All star is all about the height of the toss and the number of twists, all easier with smaller tops.

I coach at a high school team, and in order to build our new program up, we take 7th and 8th graders on Varsity (allowed in MN). But i try to make a point to put girls their age under them, or at least smaller girls. I think that this way, those 7th grade tops at least have to be tight to make the stunt work.

or cause they're in middle school

 

[stateallstar_jesse]

or cause they're in middle school

agree, at my high school 9th grade isn't even considered "high school". separate cheerleading squad and football team. its just considered ninth grade. it was a biiiiig push for us to want 9th grade cheerleaders on our competition team for winter this year.

 

[SharkDad]

Does this seem familiar to anyone? When I came into the allstar world in 2000 (I'm old, I know) there weren't levels at any competitions we attended. It was simply based on age, I believe it was something like: pee wee, junior prep (youth now-sometimes was called junior varsity), junior, senior prep, senior (varsity). Obviously we evolved from that for a reason, and while I am for a different age grid, setting a solid age grid without leniency might put us right back to our previous problems. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, that is just how I remember things going.

Back then there was much less standardization between the different event producers. You could pick the competitions that offered the team category your program liked to compete with.

 

[MRSPIGI]

So we do cater to the exception and place really young kids on senior teams, at the risk of possible burnout, more injury on less matured bodies, less appropriate social situations, and overall appeal of a routine?

While I agree that there are certainly some 12 year old anomalies, does it make sense to build our age grid around them? To drive, you have to be 16. To vote, you have to be 18. There are a few people who might be good drivers at 14 and some who are educated and reasonable enough to vote at that age, as well. But do we lower the age so those few can do what they're prepared for? No, because it's in far more people's best interest to keep it higher. On a far smaller scale, I believe the same concept should apply here.

This is not rhetorical, but do coaches most often choose their teams based on the athletes skill, or equal parts skill and readiness for a certain age division? I'd imagine it's mostly skill-based (could be wrong) and not always done with the athletes best physical and mental interest in mind (around here, we have a kinda biased crowd, because I'd venture to say that if a coach posts here, they probably have more knowledge and insight than the general "coaching public"). But in general, how are athletes chosen for a team?

in our gym I know that the coaches have the athletes well being in mind. In my case, my 12 years old as well as us parents were notified and had the right to reject the offer. We considered it very carefully. Over night in fact. Had a long talk with my daughter to see where she stood and made a very difficult, but at the same time very confident decision to agree to put our 12 year old on a very competitive worlds team. I feel that the decision was made together. We always work together, the coaches, athletes, and parents. I do understand that not all gyms are like ours. I feel fortunate and love our coaches so much. I also am amazed at her older team mates. How they respect this little girl and love her and strech her as a person. Once again. We are very lucky. And I expect only GOOD to come from such a group of amazing athletes.

 

[MRSPIGI]

I don't usually post on these boards. After all, when it comes to opinions, everyone has one and they usually are all over the place. As the parent of a child who is very small for her age, my opinion of course will be very biased. But I do think that if the athlete has earned a spot on the team and the coaches believe they should be there, then that's how it should be. I know my daughter looks small on her current team, but the truth is, she would look small on any team... probably even a junior team LOL! She's just very small. My family genetics I guess. I was very small almost until the end of high school. But one thing I will say, my daughter Gabi is a FIERCE flyer and she works hard for it! And she also works hard on her tumbling and other skills. She is one of the only girls on TG Semi throwing her double right now. I was very proud of her earning point on the team... but like I said... I'm a proud biased cheer dad!

I don't know about changing the ages for senior teams. My daughter is 13, but if she wasn't on this team, I guess she would have to cheer on the TG Open 5 team only because TG doesn't have a Jr. 5 team. I am glad she is on the Sr. team and I am very proud of her. She is mature for her age... even if she is the size of a peanut! I can see how some might be concerned about the maturity difference within the age ranges. But she works it and I am very proud of her!

Totally agree.

 

[Angelica]

thats alot of pressure on a 13 year old. but hey if they can hang with the big dogs in the sr div. then i can only imagine how good of an athlete they will be by the time they turn 18

 

[Powerinwisdom]

I think its funny how people always comment on how young or old someone looks. I'm sure if we had a gym full of 12 yr olds with doubles they would be on the World's team and be flying. Or if you see the same person on a team for more than 3 yrs they must be cheating because they should have graduated by now!

 

[cheer36mom]

So we do cater to the exception and place really young kids on senior teams, at the risk of possible burnout, more injury on less matured bodies, less appropriate social situations, and overall appeal of a routine?

While I agree that there are certainly some 12 year old anomalies, does it make sense to build our age grid around them? To drive, you have to be 16. To vote, you have to be 18. There are a few people who might be good drivers at 14 and some who are educated and reasonable enough to vote at that age, as well. But do we lower the age so those few can do what they're prepared for? No, because it's in far more people's best interest to keep it higher. On a far smaller scale, I believe the same concept should apply here.

This is not rhetorical, but do coaches most often choose their teams based on the athletes skill, or equal parts skill and readiness for a certain age division? I'd imagine it's mostly skill-based (could be wrong) and not always done with the athletes best physical and mental interest in mind (around here, we have a kinda biased crowd, because I'd venture to say that if a coach posts here, they probably have more knowledge and insight than the general "coaching public"). But in general, how are athletes chosen for a team?

i know our gym takes both the athletes skill level and maturity when placing them on a team ... i personally dont mind younger fliers on a senior team as long as they can hold their own in all aspects of the routine i hate seeing tiny fliers that are only used to fly they are hidden for the rest of the routine however i do understand that some smaller programs may not have a choice in order to fill the needs of their team so im sure it isnt always an easy decision for a coach to make

 

[SharkDad]

i know our gym takes both the athletes skill level and maturity when placing them on a team ...

I think we should all give coaches more credit for balancing what's best for the kids and the program.

Every time I have had a question about a coach's motives, it often proved to just be my point of view and when (if) I asked about it, the answer made sense. Not always, because nobody is perfect. . .but then that's why they get to be the coach.