All-Star Worlds Age Change???

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

Genetics are funny, @MissCongeniality .

My mom is 5'9. Dad is 5'7. My middle brother is 5'8.

I should in theory be average height and most likely be a base.

Nope. 4'11. I really don't know what happened.

Additional fun fact: My youngest brother is my stepdad's bio son. My stepdad is 6'6. Baby brother dwarfs us all at 6'7.

 

[MissCongeniality]

Genetics are funny, @MissCongeniality .

My mom is 5'9. Dad is 5'7. My middle brother is 5'8.

I should in theory be average height and most likely be a base.

Nope. 4'11. I really don't know what happened.

Additional fun fact: My youngest brother is my stepdad's bio son. My stepdad is 6'6. Baby brother dwarfs us all at 6'7.

They are! And there are always the "one offs" ...but generally speaking... you can get a ballpark idea.

Other interesting fact... Those height prediction charts... daughter's height typically seems to be more impacted by Dad's, while sons ... the mother's. So you and your brother: Your dad is short for a male and you end up tiny while your brother gets a boost from your mom and ends up taller than your dad. Stepbrother - gets the boost from Mom as well... taller than Dad (even thought dad is tall in this case)

Again... there are always the one-offs ... had my daughter taken after me (though I am tall) she would have been "flyer size" through about 16 or 17. Instead she grew much earlier than I did. While my youngest totally fell into my "model" and has been a late late bloomer but is now passing us all up.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

They are! And there are always the "one offs" ...but generally speaking... you can get a ballpark idea.

Other interesting fact... Those height prediction charts... daughter's height typically seems to be more impacted by Dad's, while sons ... the mother's. So you and your brother: Your dad is short for a male and you end up tiny while your brother gets a boost from your mom and ends up taller than your dad. Stepbrother - gets the boost from Mom as well... taller than Dad (even thought dad is tall in this case)

Again... there are always the one-offs ... had my daughter taken after me (though I am tall) she would have been "flyer size" through about 16 or 17. Instead she grew much earlier than I did. While my youngest totally fell into my "model" and has been a late late bloomer but is now passing us all up.

The more you know!

Also I find that you set yourself up for failure when you base your expectations on your kid's Youth or Junior team positions. You can never predict.

Ex: My godchild #2 has literally always flown. Youth 1 and 2 all star team, rec football. She is 11 and has historically been a small kid (25th %ile.) She has also always been on "taller/older kid heavy" teams. 25th percentile kid is always the flyer when everyone is in that lanky tall phase. Fast forward to this season on J1 and J2. Both teams are heavy on younger kids (average grade is probably 2nd.) She is growing like CRAZY and is now almost 40th percentile. You guessed it. She is now a base! No complaints, because she really enjoys it (she thinks it is really cool that she is strong enough to pick up humans now.) But it just shows how quickly positions change from season to season. She also gets to be a leader for her SUPER young flyer (her J1 flyer is 6 and has never CHEERED EVER, so it is cool to see her encourage/lead.)

 

[Adrirocks]

That change from May to August really got me and all the other June, July, and August '92 babies. Thought I was going to be able to do a year on a senior team junior year in college, then bam, nope! Thankfully the gym I was interested in had an Open 4 so I was able to do that instead.

What exactly was the change? I am a little confused. Did it used to be 18 by May 31st instead of August 31St?

 

[Adrirocks]

If they are raising the minimum age for senior I would also like to see them raise the minimum age of junior. If a 12-18 age range doesn't make sense neither does 5-14. I don't see how we can say 12 year olds shouldn't be on a team with 18 years olds but 1st grades and 9th graders together is theocratically acceptable. Maybe 9 years old for junior? I'm just spitballing. Would love to hear everyones thoughts

 

[MissCongeniality]

What exactly was the change? I am a little confused. Did it used to be 18 by May 31st instead of August 31St?

Yes...the "as of" used to be 5/31 and moved to 8/31 (for all divisions). They also implemented increasing minimum age for Worlds 5...First 11 then 12 the next year.

 

[luv2cheer92]

What exactly was the change? I am a little confused. Did it used to be 18 by May 31st instead of August 31St?

Yep! The change happened for the 2011-2012 season. So I was 18 on May 31st 2011, but then it was changed to August 31st and I turned 19 in June and was therefore not eligible for a senior team.

 

[quitthedrama]

If they are raising the minimum age for senior I would also like to see them raise the minimum age of junior. If a 12-18 age range doesn't make sense neither does 5-14. I don't see how we can say 12 year olds shouldn't be on a team with 18 years olds but 1st grades and 9th graders together is theocratically acceptable. Maybe 9 years old for junior? I'm just spitballing. Would love to hear everyones thoughts

I agree. They should also raise the age for International teams - otherwise the International age will be younger than the senior worlds age.

 

[Keep_Believing]

@quitthedrama I am curious if USASF has thought about that.

 

[MissCongeniality]

I agree. They should also raise the age for International teams - otherwise the International age will be younger than the senior worlds age.

@quitthedrama I am curious if USASF has thought about that.

I would guess that the International ages are more driven by the fact that other countries may need to use a larger age spread to field a team until cheer grows to the size it has in the US. Oh and $$$

 

[Jonathan Brouillette]

I have no idea of the ages of the flyers on CA Cheetahs...but like someone said above, this change would apply to everyone so I’m sure they’d adapt like everyone else. And for the poster with the 12 year old base working on her double...the change would give her a couple of years to mature physically and mentally before the stress of a Worlds team. You wouldn’t get many pre-pubescent Worlds athletes. Flyers and bases would both need to be stronger, tighter. The kids would would become burned out by having to wait until 14 would move on...but from my 9 years of experience I doubt this would happen with the truly talented, passionate athletes. I honestly making a Worlds team would become even more special, plus think of the awesome J5 teams we’d see!

And...the main benefit would be protecting 12 year olds from being exposed to things they might not be ready to handle, for example, the unfortunate situation with the Beatles photograph. They have a couple of young flyers, and I don’t know about you but I would not have enjoyed explaining the photo to my 12 year old or any of the mess that went along with it. You can’t keep them sheltered forever, but...yikes.

The J5 teams at Summit last year were better than mostly all of the at large Worlds teams... What will actually happen is gyms will end up with better looking J5 teams than their Worlds teams. Worlds teams will become a joke. Have you seen most college cheer teams?

 

[Keep_Believing]

The strong gyms and teams will continue to be strong.

 

[jersey1]

The strong gyms and teams will continue to be strong.

What you should say, is the BIG Gyms with hundreds of athletes will stay the same and be alright, the small gyms who can barely field a 5 will be hurt. Sounds like a decision made by larger gyms I guess smaller gyms are getting more competitive now in level 5 and they need to slow them down, lol, this decision will cripple the small gyms who I am sure use the 12 year olds to fill their teams.

 

[Keep_Believing]

I do worry about the true small gyms. Hoping there's a different age bracket for D2, but I have no idea.

 

[Sparkle Mom]

I find that kids are generally speaking NOT exposed to as much as people THINK they are as the "young kid" on the senior teams.

Truthfully, the older kids treat the 6th/7th/8th graders more like little kids than you think.

If anything, I've heard more of the "my kid really only hangs out with the other middle schoolers" more than anything else.

Having a 6th grader on a senior team right now I do find the age gap to be very difficult. Yes the flyers are all middle school kids but they do get exposed to many conversations that I would prefer my cp not hear. I have had to answer many questions about topics that were brought up in front of her. She was also on a junior team at 7-8 so we have been used to this but I don’t think it is necessary to go to worlds for 6-7 years. I think it would have more of a positive impact in raising the age minimum. I would love to see more jr5 teams created. This would directly impact my cp but she has no plans at this point to consider school cheer (clearly could change by 9th) grade.