[barrel]

I can think of a lot things that our tax money is wasted on, but educating children is not one of them. I don't know of any parents that have held their child back in school for the sole purpose of playing sports. It is however, all about sports to parents who oppose their children having to compete against a child that is a year older, stronger, wiser, and more mature. These parents don't really mind that a kid is held back, they just don't want their little Johnny to have to compete against them on the field or court. These same parents aren't concerned about what skills are mastered in the classroom by the child that is held back, it's all about competition in the athletic arena.

I am not sure how one can come to the conclusion that a parent (not all of those involved are parents) is all about sports when they have an issue with holdbacks. I do not see why someone would have an issue with a few players that are holdbacks. Most teams do have a player or 3 that are a year older. Where people have an issue is when 8 of the 11 offensive\defensive starters are the same age as most freshman players in the state. It raises even more questions when this type of ratio is at a small school.

The original question of this thread was about if anyone knew of an area where it was common for students to be held back for ATHLETIC reasons. People have brought all sorts of other issues. If the student is having issues learning then heck yeah hold him back. Though I have never heard fo a parent wanting to hold their child back to increase the child's chances of getting into advanced classes or to improve the writing skills. If the kid is not mature as far as socially then yeah that makes sense.

Heck if people do not have an issue with their MS team playing what for most accounts is a freshman team I know Trinity's freshman team has a hard time getting games. In HS this type fo stuff starts to even out but on a MS level it tends to tip the scales at times pretty bad.