[topnotch]

I have always had mixed feelings about this but its a fact.....the biggest majority of holdbacks are for athletics period. I have seen it over and over with coaching and officiating sports for a long time.........in middle school it makes a great difference and many wins result usually from schools that allow student athletes to participate in the same grade more than once. Bottom line.........they all catch up in high school and there isn't that big of a difference anymore. I can give you so many examples of schools that have all these great accolades in middle school sports and most of their high school teams never get out of their regional tournaments or parents end up moving their kids around to a different school where the team is better with different kids. I've seen middle schools do this with entire teams and completely alienate the kids behind them to where their programs suffer. I've seen coaches stop coaching after a bunch of holdbacks leave/graduate on to high school only to return when the deck is stacked again. I've even seen students that are held back at a school that doesn't allow them to repeat a year of participation go to another school for a year so they can play only to return to the original school when the holdback period is up. But that is for growing and maturing purposes only. Ultimately, it is the parents decision to hold back......khsaa isn't saying you cant hold students back.......just that they cant play/participate twice in the same grade.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH HOLDING a KID BACK FOR ATHLETIC PURPOSE.