Now since the 2023 season has about all but ended (we "officially" end on August 15, but more for any TD running Rec/All-Stars the next two weekends or All State Games), I am getting bombarded with questions and other requests. Here are a few:
1. Can we get a waiver because we want to keep kids who have fall birthdays on our team?
2. Are you going to change your mind and follow 8/31 birthdays?
3. Can you just let the older kids follow the USA rule and leave the younger kids to follow your current rule?
Ok. I also got cussed out by one woman because her daughter has a August 30 birthday and our "new" rules won't let her stay in her current age group and her daughter will be 13 playing against 15 year old women (as she put it)? After I explained to her that we didn't change anything, she hung up on me (a typical Karen). This just an ordinary call I get weekly.......
So the answers to these pressing questions:
1 & 3 - No waivers. We also can't trick our system to show one age cutoff date for different age groups. We do have a 4/30 cutoff in Baseball but can not selectively make different cutoffs in one sport. It has to be one date only or our web team would probably kill us if we did something like that to them.
2. We will discuss the age cutoff change by ONE organization first at our regional meeting in later August and then our National meeting in November. We will gather all points/counterpoints at that Regional to present to the National meeting when we have our open FP meeting on opening day at the convention. This is the main reason I left NSA after summer of 2015. They dictated to us that all teams would have to purchase their (NSA) team insurance to play in their events. They did not consult a single director at any level, they just dictated it to the people who have to explain it every day to teams. With USSSA, we do still have some say in how things are done since we have to answer to the teams at the state and local levels. Since some of the directors with the group who made the change seem to have only found out when the public did, it appears how this was handled at a National level.
USSSA can be the trend setter in this whole thing whether the group that made the change likes it or not. If we decided to also make the change, then you can wager that anyone of the smaller players (USFA/NSA/FASA/SBN/NAFA) in areas where we have a large market share, will jump right in line and follow suit so they can mirror what we do to keep getting their market share. What will happen then? Will the other group immediately change back so they can appear to be doing something exciting for the game?
Do not get me wrong, I think it is a very good idea. We just do not ram things down peoples throats who work for us without a discussion. If we meet in August then November and think this is a bad idea, then we move on and go about our everyday business. But at least those in leadership roles will have had a say in the matter.