Youth Eligibility Update
Jake McKean
Coaches and Organizers,
Last week at our High School Season kick-off meeting we highlighted some updates to the USA Ultimate youth guidelines. One specific change was of particular concern; that high school events would only include athletes in the 9th-12th grade. Over the last week the MN Ultimate Board has spent a lot of time discussing the implications of this change as well as gathering opinions from you all and investigating what USA Ultimate can approve for local exceptions.
If you have athletes younger than the 9th grade involved in your program please visit our eligibility page for all the details. But for 2016 the local state exception will allow for 8th grade participation in high school events. This is a transitional exception only. The expectation for 2017 is that all high school teams will be made up of high school students exclusively.
When you deliver the news to any middle school students involved in your program it is critical that you do not tell them they simply cannot play. Because they can still play, just in age appropriate events. They can practice with your team and they can participate in middle school programming. They just cannot play in high school events as a middle school student (with 8th graders being the exception this year only).
I would encourage you to all familiarize yourselves with, and help promote, our middle school league. Registration is not open yet, but many of the broad details have been agreed upon by our middle school coordinators. Participants in the middle school program will get a comparable amount of games to high schoolers, in a program with similar aged opponents, designed to give them more opportunity to develop and learn; all while competing for a state championship!
Please educate the families in your programs about this update and the implications for certain players immediately. And if an exception will be pursued, complete the application as soon as possible.
Regards,
