SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP U-19 Fall club soccer for HS seniors

If a player is entering their senior year of high school, and he or she has already "aged out" of U-18, that player is currently out of luck and ineligible for SCYS club soccer.

How do we fix this?

These are players who were generally held back early in their academic careers, or started school late for a number of reasons. I don't think too many parents are red-shirting their boys in 8th grade, hoping for a competitive advantage to a D1 scholarship. And on the girls side, I don't see much difference physically between a sophomore in high school (16) and a senior (18), so there is no size/maturity advantage there.

How do we advocate a change here in South Carolina? Georgia and North Carolina have both made modifications to allow for this?

All in favor........?

Occasionally SCYSA has a U19 club season, or has in the past at least. Many college freshmen or people you're talking about in your OP play on them...

I just researched for approximately 45 seconds on the topic and found this

http://scysa.demosphere.com/StateCup/StateCupFall2007/index_E.html

Scroll down to the very bottom of the page. Now you may be asking the question "where's the girls" or "was this offered this year?" My summation would be that there was a lack of interest this year. You need multiple teams to create a league. The specifics of what you're talking about are not constant in SC soccer. I don't think it is a league problem as much as it is an interest problem. I seriously doubt the SCYSA will turn down money.

One possible fix would be to allow a U-19 who still had HS eligiablity to play on a U-18 team under a case by case waiver. This would give a player a chance to play in the fall season and be ready for the HS season in spring. The waiver process could be a simple, well we know how simple thing can get twisted and "complexed", way to ensure that no funny stuff was going on reguarding the player.

In the case of a player who had no HS time left they would not get a waiver. Waiver could be somthing where school board signs/noterizes stating that the player is a raising senior with a season of eligiblability left. Do not see any real harm to true U-18's (17 yr olds) to playing with U19's (18 yr olds) since they play against each other in school already.

To the best of my knowledge ...every spring SCYSA holds a U19 state cup championship... there is no league.

In the past these teams were made up of college freshmen that play in their respective schools and 19 year old HS players.
Ga and NC have extended the seasons to U19 ... in fact the various tournaments have U19 age groups and skip U18 age groups.

The alternative is to play adult league recreational soccer at this time.

Not looking to start a U-19 team, or a U-19 league, just looking for an opportunity for high school seniors who have been classified as too old to play.

A waiver is a good idea and let SCYS judge on a case-by-case basis. Can't really see a reason why they would turn someone down.

Georgia avoids this issue by going from U-17 to U-19 (no U-18). Nobody falls through the cracks. However this does create an opportunity to stack a roster with college players (although I don't think this is abused).

I think the key concern is making sure high school players get to play in the fall to be ready for spring and that kids who thru no fault of their own are "aged" out get to play, keeping to HS eligible only players would keep the college kids out, seems like it would be ok on either boys or girls side. After all how many kids are we really going to be talking about anyway? (any coaches out there want to post guess numbers to what they might see over a couple of years?)

from the SCASA website...

"...SCASA is working closely with the South Carolina Youth Soccer Association (SCYSA) so that among other things we can provide a smooth transition and venue for rising (+19 year-olds) youth players."

http://www.scamateursoccer.org/

This is helpful....but most 18+ year old HS seniors would prefer to play one more year with their schoolmates, rather than with older women.

Can we pave the way to make it happen?

Received this via e-mail from a friendly club registrar. This is how North Carolina handles it:

"If a Senior in high school has aged out and is truly a U19, NCYSA allows the "real" U19 player to play on the U18 club team during their senior year of high school. However, they cannot play in State Cup, because they have aged out."