[kidlexington]

Two things it does:

To the upperclassman he learns all about Entitlements, which are nothing more than gifts. Our government will teach him about those things in a few years.

To the younger player, it sends a message that if you work harder than all the rest you are probably gonna get screwed out of an opportunity anyway. So why try. Again our governement will teach him about those things in a few years as well.

You’re welcome to your opinion, which makes as much sense as mine. But where do you see “Entitlement” in this. If teams are limited to students WHO ACTUALLY ATTEND THE SCHOOL THEY REPRESENT, they still have to try out competitively against every other student in the school that wants to join the team. If they make the team, they still have to do all the work and follow all the rules, make the coach happy, and compete for playing time with all the other teammates. That’s not entitlement.

When you introduce holdbacks playing up in public schools, then you’ve introduced entitlements! Their family feels entitled to an extra year of “free public education,” which isn’t free but paid for by the taxpayers to the tune of 8 or 10 grand. If they want the kid to play high school too, why the heck did they hold him back? So little Johnny-holdback can get an extra year to set a new scoring record and forever have his jockstrap on display in the trophy case of Podunk High? If we don’t want to call this unnecessary theft of taxpayer money an Entitlement, let’s call it what it is, welfare fraud. Taking thousands of dollars of public aid when it’s not necessary, but to gain personal advantage. Taxpayers should only pay for repeating a grade when education professionals feel it’s in the child’s best interest.

If you're really worried about the kid on his OWN high school team learning about government entitlements, keep him away from the middle school holdback who is already gaming the system.