[toussaints]

they used to (and most likely still do) practice holding kids back a lot up in Ohio. my dad's friend who coached at Illinois in the early 90's always said that the best football player on the field was held back in 8th grade, but they were the hardest ones to recruit due to their academic eligibility they usually had sub-standard grades and/or test scores in high school because they really didn't care about it or felt that athletics were far superior to academics.

i know a good amount of people that would have their son play on the freshman team in 8th grade instead of hold them back, which was fine as long as they didn't dress and play varsity