“A growing number of middle school athletes — mostly boys — are intentionally repeating 8th grade to delay their start in high school, giving themselves another full year to get bigger, stronger, and faster, which in turn dramatically boosts their chances at elite high school spots, college scholarships, and massive NIL deals potentially worth millions.”
A growing number but I assume still likely a tiny minority of students. Though it is interesting, there certainly have been no shortage of pressures on kids to be elite athletes, pageant queens, accomplished musicians, or academic superstars over the years. This is just another iteration of the same types of pressures, but possibly there’s newer money motivators with the change in college sports.
Don’t hate the player hate the game
sooner or later, high schools will start getting access to NIL
NIL is already in high schools.
Here is a state-by-state summary.
amazing when we didn’t have social media etc - the best players still were discovered cause folks used to do actual scouting homework
Parents were holding kids back in the 70’s so they could get bigger for football and basketball. This is not new, but probably more people are doing it than before.
5 Likes
Small Texas high schools would have their entire team held back in 8th grade.
Are you saying that scouts these days aren’t doing the same work?
I saw it firsthand in the 80s.
This has been going on for several years. Not just 1-2 kids in a zip code either. Every school probably has one now.
My son is going into his Jr year and we know probably a dozen kids that have done it in basketball alone. It’s provided a good boost to their stock too (although I suspect that will change as they stop growing now).
I saw it mostly around Houston with families on the lower economic scale whose kids had very promising athletic ability.
Kids have been repeating Kindergarten since beginning of time. It’s especially popular among kids with late Spring/Summer BDays.
1 Like
it is not just Texas. in my county in NY, one of the schools was notorious for the delayed kindergarten deal
Not in person - remember when coaches actually went to the games to scout in mass? Not to see a kid that already committed based on a camp performance