but the reason I did it was so that my son could play with the team he had been with for 3 years prior, we moved and he wanted to stay with his friends (I also wanted to stay with the same coaches, as I was a coach), we did that for 2 years, and at the end of the 5 years 9 boys had played together every season, I don't regret the fake address at all for the experience he had, but it wasn't mainly for competitive reasons.

I did get caught the second year, and because my son was one of the better players in the league, the team he was zoned for complained and thought it was a major coup that he was going to be on their team, but my son told me that if he couldn't play with his friends, he didn't want to play at all. When I informed the league commissioner that we would be quitting and wanted our money back if he couldn't play with the team he had been with the previous 4 years, thankfully common sense prevailed and he was allowed to play with his friends.

My situation doesn't sound like it matches this situation, but sometimes league rules, while they have good intentions, aren't always in the kids best interest, and really, they should be. If the kids was doing this to stay with friends that he had played with previously, which sounds possible, I could understand. I should add, I don't think playing a kid down a league, especially if he is gifted, is really in his best interest, a kid that is physically undeveloped, I sometimes feel like they should make exceptions. As a football coach, I was just a frustrated as the poor kid who was 4 inches shorter and 25 lbs lighter than every other kid on the team but whose birthday was 3 weeks past the cutoff, that kid should have been down a level where he could have had more equal competition and a better experience. My philosophy is that if a kid plays a sport and doesn't want to do it again the next year, you are probably doing something wrong. Sounds like they may be doing something wrong if he doesn't like it already.