WWolff
"Suck A Little Less Today"
There is a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers. It discusses how when you are born can be an advantage. The book uses hockey in Canada as an example, where club hockey starts at like 4 years old. Playing for the best teams is super competitive. And just like our softball age cut, they use 12/31 as their age determination date.
The theory goes like this: The best hockey club in Canada, who we will call Lasers Hockey Club, wants the best players to form a 4-year old super team. Since a 4-year old kid born in January is a lot more mature than a 4-year old born in December, Lasers Hockey takes a bunch of kids born in the first 3 months of the year.
So Child A born in January makes the team and Child B born in December (if he even makes a team) is relegated to playing for a lessor organization, we will call... Outlaws Hockey. Child A is playing for the the best coaches and plays against the best competition so he gets a year of advanced development. Child B does not.
So the following year at tryouts Child A now has 2 advantages; 1) he is still older, and 2) he has more experience. So the same thing happens and Child A makes the Lasers and Child B goes to the Outlaws again. So the cycle goes on and on. Eventually the age gap is negligible, but the experience factor is always there.
There is an unusually high percentage of older Canadian kids (16 - 18 yr olds) in Canada's club hockey system were born in the Jan, Feb, or March. And there is also high percent of Canadian born NHL players who were born in the first 3 months of the year. There are exceptions, Mario Lemieux for example. But the book theorizes that an advantage in that competitive of an environment may never be able to be overcome.
The book is pretty a pretty good read and the theory is interesting.
Holy crap Steve I didn't realize you had such a good sense of humor. I fell out of my chair.