Mike-
Thank you for the very insightful post. After reading all the replies last night, my husband, son and I all agreed to do exactly as your last paragraph stated "treat this as one more obstacle to overcome". This is the sport our son chose and he wants to be the best. We talked about sacrifice, (not the least being the Friday before weigh-in starvation)and he is willing to do whatever it takes to atleast maintain, if not improve upon his placement at state for next year. Perhaps we are more concerned than he is over the issue of age. I guess we all want to see our children reach their goals, and it is easy to find fault with the obvious uncontrollable limitations, but simply stated, we need to live with it.