Longtime youth sports coach says enough with the early cuts

A reader wrote in to share with us a column written for the Townsman by Andrew Boyle, a Wellesley resident who has been coaching youth sports for 13 years. Boyle argues that it’s time to stop forming elite teams and making cuts involving kids at “ridiculously young ages,” such as 8 years old. Not only does this lead to burn-out of early bloomers, but disregard for late bloomers. Boyle’s not in favor of doing away with competition, but just delaying some of the harsher realities of sports until kids are at least of middle school age. Thoughts?