Red-shirting kindergarten boys was a thing where I grew up in Texas. To make them more likely to make football teams.
Redshirting is freakin' ridiculous.
I come from a long line of people born between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31 when the school cut-off generally was Jan. 1. Thus, everyone born in the same year was in the same class. My family members and I thus graduated high school at 17 and college at 21.
To anyone who says it helps sports, consider this. I was born in October of 1969. My classmates included Brett Favre (Oct. 1969), Herman Moore (Oct. 1969) and Ken Griffey Jr. (Nov. 1969). All graduated high school at 17 and went on to Hall of Fame sports careers. (Herman Moore belongs in Canton but nobody appreciates him since he played on lousy Lions teams. Yes, I know that's redundant.)
I had modest sports genes and wasn't going to be an elite athlete regardless.
Teenagers like Mickey Mantle, Bob Feller, Johnny Bench, Al Kaline and Griffey Jr. routinely used to reach the Majors before their 20th birthday. That's because they graduated high school at 17. This doesn't happen today because high school grads are 18 1/2 or older.
Not only have we shifted the school deadline four months -- from Jan. 1 from Sept. 1 -- but now idiot parents like the ones in this story redshirt their kids another year because of sports or -- even better -- "socialization." WTF?
We have neighbors where the father applied his frustrations over a modest high school wrestling carer to his twin sons, born in December of 1995. Already they would have been the oldest in their class, but he held them back another year. Thus they're graduating high school this month -- finally -- at the age of 19 1/2. They will wrestle in college, but they probably would have anyway had they not been redshirted. The old man relentlessly pushed their wrestling careers at the expense of his other three kids.
When I was 19 1/2, I was finishing my sophomore year of college. Like so many others of previous generations.
Our younger son was born in August. People thought we'd start him in school a year later than we did. I thought nothing of it. Heck, he's two months older in school than I was at the same age. He's thriving academically and athletically.
It makes no sense to hold your kids back. If sports is your thing, your kid is going to thrive by playing with kids older and more advanced.