USSF is set to vote Friday (11-22) on changing roster construction back to School Year Based as opposed to Birth Year. They made the change to birth year in 2016? Does anyone remember how this was rolled out in 2016? Were certain age groups/teams grandfathered in or were all forced to change at once?
That stuff is tricky and I'm glad I didn't have to worry about it. In my family, my sister and I are 21 months apart--but were only 1 year apart in school.
It's all at once. Individual teams/clubs will be able to choose to stay together and play up. But reality is that very few clubs will do that. Top teams will almost assuredly reshuffle the deck to be competitive (and at the HS age groups to better enable their players to be recruited), and that will trickle down to the rest of those clubs teams. There was some discussion of some league operating independently (ECNL) in terms of age groups (in terms of they were considering making the change whether the rest of the country did or not). But it sounds like everyone wants it to be a joint agreement between US Club and USYS at all of their levels. My 3rd hand info says everyone (i.e. leagues and governing bodies) want this change and it's almost a formality. The exceptions are that MLSNext and ODP could conceivably stick with current birth-year formats. But I have no knowledge of that, direct or indirect, just heard some conjecture about those.
There's some discussion of this in the youth coaching thread. Of note... the change would greatly reduce trapped 8th graders and seniors, but not eliminate it. Most leagues (Ken of OCL/COPL here locally has already stated they will) will allow the few trapped 8th graders to play "down" in U14/15 for Fall season before having to return to their U15 teams for Spring. U18 will likely continue to be U18/19 as well to allow those older seniors to keep play Spring ball.
This is what I can best parse out; MLSNext has no intention of moving away from birth year ECNL wants age groups aligned with birth year calendars and will move heaven and earth to make it happen. Those are the two biggest players I know US Soccer says that leagues will have flexibility in their statement, but reality is that each state association will make a decision for all teams that fall under their umbrella (and word is OSA wants school year). Now, maybe rec leagues will have that flexibility a bit more. So ECNL & ECNL-RL will move to school calendar. My fairly confident guess is NPL follows suit. The question is whether US Club will move their whole ecosystem to school calendar or if they will basically go with no rules for their member leagues. And if they do move entirely to school calendar, do they use a rigid date system or allow some flexibility for individual leagues. OSA likely goes school calendar, so that will include Buckeye Premier League, OSA State league and whatever else there is. I'm less certain about what E64 (/E64-RL) & GA do, but if I had to guess I'd say they go school calendar. GA is the next closest pipeline to college soccer for girls next to ECNL & E64 is attempting to compete with ECNL. I'll be curious to see if most everyone settles on the Aug-July calendar. Supposedly one of the complaints is that some states school year cutoff differs than others*. I know that in Ohio, i was one of the youngest in my grade. When I went to college in Michigan, while I was still on the younger side, there were many more people in my class who were younger than me as they have a later cutoff. So if Michigan wants to do Sept-Aug instead, I don't see that as a huge deal, but what if some other state wants to stay birth year. That's going to cause a huge issue for tournaments that get out of state competition to have to try to bracket/seed teams that have different birth years on top of the difficulty And then there's the issue of teams that are dual carded. A lot of my current club's teams are dual carded OSA and US Club as they play in a state division or higher in OSA and play COPL for extra local games (A lot of clubs do this with NPL and COPL too, but those are both US Club ecosystems). *US Soccer said the biggest complaint was that there wasn't enough time to make the change. To which I say rip the bandaid off if that's what you're going to do. **of course this timing is especially bad for my kid who is currently in their trapped year (8th grade U15 player) and would have benefited from staying U15 next year and making a higher tier team with possible more college visability. Whereas a year and a half from now, when the change does get implemented, she will be entering sophomore year, which is prime recruiting time for girls, apparently. ***I personally voted present, if you will, on my survey. I said changing would personally benefit my kid, but as a coach birth year is just simpler to deal with. (and while it may seem insignificant... the idea that I can call a team XYZ 2012 consistently year to year instead of XYZ U13 this year then changing to XYZ U14 next year, and on and on is a nice to have, but *shrug*)
If one goes to school calendar all will have to. Tournaments would be a nightmare for teams based on birth year.
Pro-pathways will likely stay birth year; MLSNext, USL, ODP, NWSL, etc. (I know ODP is a different entity and is an extra-curricular, but they already split age groups in half in larger states like Ohio up until U15, figure they will continue to do so). Pretty much everyone else will probably go school calendar. Question is will they all settle on Aug-July or will there be some variability. I saw a mistake above where I said ECNL wants "birth year"... clearly meant age groups aligned with "school year"