What Division Will I Play In?

What Division Will I Play In? - 2009 Edition

Players will be assigned to divisions according to age. Here are the divisions for the 2009:

Note 1.  Players age eligible for Division U14 who will enter the ninth grade in the fall are required to play in Division U16 unless they formally commit not to try out for or play in any high school soccer team. The reason for this is that CIF rules under which all of our local high schools play do not allow high school players to participate in AYSO or any other organized programs during the CIF season.  This used to result in Division U14 9th graders leaving the program in December, thereby unbalancing the teams in the middle of the playoffs and leaving them short of players. Division U16 plays a shortened season with one or two games a week which ends before the CIF season begins and does not conflict with CIF rules.  For more information, see our June 21, 1998 newsletter.

Note 2:  Players who (a) are in the seventh grade at school and (b) are age eligible for Division U12 and(c) as a result may only be eligible for one year of Division U14 under the above rule may (but are not required or even encouraged to) apply to be transferred to Division U14 a year early. No player who will not turn 12 until after December 31 of this year, no player in 6th grade, and no player without at least one year of experience in AYSO or club soccer is eligible for transfer under this rule.

Under our Section's rules, a player who is age eligible for Division U14 but plays in Division U16 during the regular season is not eligible for selection to the Division U14 All Star tournament.  Similarly, any player who is age eligible for Division U12 but plays in Division U14  during the regular season is not eligible for selection to the Division U12 All Star tournament team. They can be selected to play in any other tournament at the division level for which they are age appropriate, if those tournament rules permit.   Sorry for the bureaucratic rules, but it does help the program.

Note 3:  Because of the huge number of players, we divide U8 into U8B (6 year olds or mostly 1st graders and some younger 2nd graders) and U8A (7 year olds or mostly 2nd and some younger 3rd graders).  We have been doing this for some years in Boys U8 and, due to increased enrollment, began the same split for girls in 2006.  In 2007, we split Boys U10 into a BU10 and a BU9, but this was reversed and Boys U10 reunified in 2008.

Note 4: Our divisions generally correspond to grades, as follows:

However, because age is determined on July 31 for our purposes but in December for purposes of most Southern California schools, we often see players born in August through November who are in a higher grade. For example, a player born in August might be entering the 1st grade but the player’s age was 5 on July 31 and so their initial assignment is to Division U6.

In recent years, we have given all parents a choice of whether to move their children up to be in a division with the majority of the players from the same grade. (As noted in Note 1, moving up is mandatory for certain high school players.) We expect this policy to continue in for the foreseeable future, although we may choose the alternative of automatically assigning players according to their grade and then allowing parents the choice of moving their children down to a division if eligible based on their age.

However, we do it (a) we don’t have to allow move-ups or move-downs once a player has been assigned to a team unless we determine that the change can be done without disrupting the program; and (b) except in unusual circumstances in our absolute discretion (which might be exercised to accommodate a child with documented developmental or physical challenges), we do not allow a player to move down if the player would be older than the maximum age for the division.

Last updated June 27, 2009 at 08:49 AM