All-Star Kill The Youth Division?

[CGAcheer]

This is the nature of the beast. Kids are going to get their skills up and move on to a bigger or "better" gym. I'm coming from a small gym here, and I can say that there are just some things that small gyms cannot offer to a child who fits those characteristics described. I came from a much a larger gym a few years back, about 250 kids. We had jr and sr 5 teams who were placing at major nationals, but not cleaning up. As soon as these kids started getting standing fulls, specialty fulls, and doubles, they peaced out and went to the World Champion teams 45 min away. It was like an epidemic.

No one is "condemning" the parents for wanting their 10 or 12 year old on a senior team, it's just about what is appropriate. Even in gymnastics, you have a certain age minimum for competing in the olympics (14, I believe). So, if you have an exceptional 12 year old, they compete in Junior Olympics until they age up. I don't see how the age minimum here would be any different.

The difference is that cheer requires a team. In gymnastics, you only have to worry about the individual kid.

All of these posts seem to only think about the situation where there is 1 or 2 exceptional peanuts, fetuses, 80lbs flyers or 10 or 11 year olds on a team full of 15+ yr old girls who do nothing but talk about all the parties they went to on friday night and who did what with whose boyfriend.

But the more likely scenario, I feel would be a small gym with their only sr team having 20 kids with 4 10 to 11 year olds, 12 12 to 14 yr olds and 4 15 or 16 year olds. If you have minimum ages, I guess you have to turn away the 15 year olds because they are too old? Do you drop the younger ones, who lets say for example have a tuck down to your youth 1 team with kids who are just learning to cartwheel? or do you just split the team in half and have a jr 3 with 10 kids and a sr 3 with 10 kids?

 

[xtremeteal4life]

I like the playing the role of devils advocate, so not that I disagree with your suggestions, I just like looking at it from the other side as well. At my former gym, we lost kids every year to WC. Some left on good terms, some not so much. We also gained kids from WC, but that's a different story. To those that have said that not everyone can be a WC or TG, I know that. But isn't that part of why you opened your business. Isn't that what most dream to be? Every time the rules process comes up, it's the little gyms that are fighting to stay in business, and fighting to keep things fair. Not every gym can field the amount of teams that the bigger named gyms can, but they all want to be able to do that. You have to start somewhere, and telling talent that walks in the door you can't use them is shooting yourself in the foot.

You took the words right out of my mouth...now if you don't aspire to be at that level as some people in this thread are suggesting (that they are content w/being a small gym for x, y, and z reasons), then that's great and I'm not gonna look down on you....BUT

that is is certainly not the goal for everyone. You are right, you have to start somewhere and if you do aspire to that larger level of business success, etc. you can't afford to lose your athletes. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than you desire.

 

[Num1Stunta]

The difference is that cheer requires a team. In gymnastics, you only have to worry about the individual kid.

All of these posts seem to only think about the situation where there is 1 or 2 exceptional peanuts, fetuses, 80lbs flyers or 10 or 11 year olds on a team full of 15+ yr old girls who do nothing but talk about all the parties they went to on friday night and who did what with whose boyfriend.

But the more likely scenario, I feel would be a small gym with their only sr team having 20 kids with 4 10 to 11 year olds, 12 12 to 14 yr olds and 4 15 or 16 year olds. If you have minimum ages, I guess you have to turn away the 15 year olds because they are too old? Do you drop the younger ones, who lets say for example have a tuck down to your youth 1 team with kids who are just learning to cartwheel? or do you just split the team in half and have a jr 3 with 10 kids and a sr 3 with 10 kids?

You're basically explaining my gym right there. I have mostly 12-14 year olds on my senior team, because they are the ones with the tumbling. My biggest issue, however, is the maturity level. The 15+ girls are fed up to the point where they don't want to come back next year, because these younger girls are just not as focused.

If I understand your scenario correctly, you're saying ALL of those kids would have level 3 skills all around? Not for nothing, but having a tuck doesn't automatically make you level 3, in my book. It's about the whole package. If a kid is 10 with a tuck, but is running around like a hot mess on the floor and doesn't have the body control in the air, then they aren't ready for a level 3 team, especially a senior 3. I would think it would be extremely rare for a small gym to have that kind of age spread with the same exact skill set in every category.

My old gym, case in point... I had a 10 year old who was throwing a full and was placed on junior level 4, because she was not able to fly on senior 5 at the time. She ended up getting dropped from junior 4 to senior 3, because she simply couldn't keep up in the routine, or with stunts. She spent a year on senior 3 flying, and then ended up going to a nearby gym with multiple worlds teams. She spent two years on a junior 4 there, and is now on a junior 5... all of that time she had a full. That gym has successful worlds teams BECAUSE they place kids according to more skill requirements than just tumbling!

 

[CGAcheer]

Well for the example, all the kids are beyond level 2 skills but below level 4 skills and are certainly beyond first year youth 1 skills all around.

Let's add another detail, the youth team already has 17 kids on it. So dropping the 4 talented and well rounded kids down also pushes them one kid into large.

So what do you do? Kick the old ones out? Have 2 super tiny teams? Drop the young ones way below their skill level and go large?

None of those are good options

 

[Num1Stunta]

Well for the example, all the kids are beyond level 2 skills but below level 4 skills and are certainly beyond first year youth 1 skills all around.

Let's add another detail, the youth team already has 17 kids on it. So dropping the 4 talented and well rounded kids down also pushes them one kid into large.

So what do you do? Kick the old ones out? Have 2 super tiny teams? Drop the young ones way below their skill level and go large?

None of those are good options

Drop 3 of them down and keep the strongest?

 

[CGAcheer]

But there are 4 that would be below the age minimum (if there were one)

 

[Num1Stunta]

But there are 4 that would be below the age minimum (if there were one)

I see what you're saying.... so basically, it's a bad idea because it only effects one child in your whole program? I'm not sure I see your logic.

 

[bestbackspot]

I actually would want to go the other way and have smaller gaps between divisions. In most other youth sports, there's a conscious attempt to kids of the same age on a team. For example, our soccer program doesn't even promote the idea of a 11-year-old playing on a U14 team unless there's an exceptional reason to do so. And I know, especially with younger kids, that the difference between a 7 and 10-year-old is dramatic - much more than the difference between a 14 and 17-year old. So what I'd propose in a perfect world is:

this is cheerleading, nawt soccer

Tiny (under 6)
Mini (under 8)
Youth 1 (under 10)
Youth 2 (under 12)
Junior (under 14)
Senior (under 18)

I understand the negatives to that - likely would see fewer teams in a division, smaller gyms would likely be forced to put younger kids on teams with older ones anyway.

I haven't thought about how the levels would work, but I'd say that maybe Mini maxes out at 3, Youth 1 maxes out at 4, and then Youth 2 would be the first age group that would allow level 5.

 

[bestbackspot]

i think we should keep things the way they are... i mean they were made this way for a reason right?

 

[CGAcheer]

I see what you're saying.... so basically, it's a bad idea because it only effects one child in your whole program? I'm not sure I see your logic.

its an example, not my program.

It would affect the whole program and tons of others just like it. It would affect the one kid who I guess you would send off to WC for not fitting in. It affects the people who would move down to a youth 1 team who have level 3 abilities, it would affect the other 16 girls who now have a weaker team because of losing those 4 kids. or if you went large with youth team you are affecting that whole team.

It's not about just one kid. Putting minimums takes it out of the hands of the people who are there in the program with all of the kids and know what each of them are capable of and know which arrangement of kids and teams are best for the individual kids, teams and program as a whole.

There are also the brand new upstart gyms who may only have 16 kids total, spanning from 9 to 16, should they just go ahead and close or make teams with 8 or less kids?

There are tons of examples and scenarios where having age minimums would have a terrible effect on the kids, teams, and programs as a whole.

can you give an example where not having age minimums would put someone out of business, create ridiculous talent disparities on a team or force someone to have incredibly tiny teams?

 

[Num1Stunta]

its an example, not my program.

It would affect the whole program and tons of others just like it. It would affect the one kid who I guess you would send off to WC for not fitting in. It affects the people who would move down to a youth 1 team who have level 3 abilities, it would affect the other 16 girls who now have a weaker team because of losing those 4 kids. or if you went large with youth team you are affecting that whole team.

It's not about just one kid. Putting minimums takes it out of the hands of the people who are there in the program with all of the kids and know what each of them are capable of and know which arrangement of kids and teams are best for the individual kids, teams and program as a whole.

There are also the brand new upstart gyms who may only have 16 kids total, spanning from 9 to 16, should they just go ahead and close or make teams with 8 or less kids?

There are tons of examples and scenarios where having age minimums would have a terrible effect on the kids, teams, and programs as a whole.

can you give an example where not having age minimums would put someone out of business, create ridiculous talent disparities on a team or force someone to have incredibly tiny teams?

Then why even have age separations in the first place? Lets put allllll the level one kids ages 3-18 on the same team, and the level 2 kids, and so on.... I mean, it truthfully makes no sense to have an upper age limit and not a lower. You're really not going to see that in any other "legitimate" sport

These issues you are describing are happening now anyway, I don't see this changing things for the negative.

 

[CGAcheer]

Then why even have age separations in the first place? Lets put allllll the level one kids ages 3-18 on the same team, and the level 2 kids, and so on.... I mean, it truthfully makes no sense to have an upper age limit and not a lower. You're really not going to see that in any other "legitimate" sport

These issues you are describing are happening now anyway, I don't see this changing things for the negative.

If you want to put a mini team in the Sr division you can, that would be your choice and it wouldn't be unfair, but it would be unfair to put a sr team in the mini division. That is why there are upper limits

if there were a 12 min for SR a small gym with 16 kids with ages spanning 9 to 16 could not make a decent team.

Last rules cycle there was Sr 1-5 which was 12 to 18 and there was Sr Open 1-4 which was 18 and under We changed to the current system for a reason, it eliminated 4 divisions which creates more competition, while going with the division that I assume was the more popular choice and allows gyms the ability to create teams based on age and ability rather than being forced to put people in their age division regardless of ability.

Unless you have the numbers to create multiple teams per age division, you are forced to have all of your similar aged kids on the same team regardless of skill. so your star jumping forward rolls would be on the same team with your hyperextended toe touch, double fulling kids

So again, how does not having minimums have a drastic negative impact on kids, teams or programs?