[mysonis55]

well coach lockwood tell me then how that helps the kid or the program for him to set that one year. i have a job where i deal with the children. if they do not have sports some of them dont have anything. i can recall one that i coached in baseball years ago, the one year his grandmother had him set out for discipline reasons is the very year he got in with the wrong crowd and began selling drugs. did that help the kid no. did that help his team no. did that help the state that is now funding him, no.

here are some factors that you all are not taking into consideration. every child matures differently. the state has already mandated the latest age they can play at. some of these kids hit their birthday on the wrong day and get considered to be a year older, but they shouldn't cause they are now the runt of that group. there is also the fact that the parents may want that extra year with the child, which they will never get back. there are those that may be born on the right date, but were born premature (speaking from experience). this means they are by a month or so a year older as the school sees it but, really are not.

I think the rules should be held to the standard that the khsaa has set. They obviously have personnel that have time to conduct such studies and therefore would know what is right for the children as a whole. It does not matter if you have these hold backs or not, you are always going to have kids that are far more advanced than others.

I am from Mayfield and I can tell you we face those bigger players that are far more advanced all the time. The secret is not in how much more advanced physically your players are. The secret is how much more advanced mentally your coaches and your players are. The last seven years we have played a far bigger and even faster paducah tilghman team in high school. Look at the results. The last two years we have played a much bigger Lou Holy Cross team, look at the results.

I have coached football, baseball, soccer and basketball. I have always heard the jokes and remarks about how we got beat or we won because this kid or that kid showed up driving a car. This stuff does not matter if you have the proper coaching and the proper teaching. This really is a discussion that is best left to the experts on education.