The Journal. - The Big Business of Holding Back Eighth-Graders

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Holding students back in school once came with a negative connotation. But with college athletes now able to earn endorsement deals, they are preparing younger and younger to be recruited and potentially get paid. WSJ's Harriet Ryan reports on the rise of special middle schools where students hold themselves back on purpose so they can grow, develop and mature before high school. Ryan Knutson hosts.   Further Listening: - Inside the Black Market for High School Football Players- NCAA President on a New Era for College Sports - How Gamblers Are Rigging College Basketball Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you said, your bars are clear! This is the sound of finals at a middle school in Southern California. Let's go, Chance! Ah! Go, Chamberlain! And at this school, their finals aren't just on paper. They're also in the gym. They're being tested for their speed, their strength.

Here, they're doing pull-ups. This middle school is called the Togethership. And as you may have guessed, it isn't a typical school. It's a private school where a major part of the curriculum is athletics. There are classes like weightlifting and speed training, and they also have classes for specific sports, like the football players who work on running routes and throwing mechanics. Ready to go? Yeah, running routes, routes on air. And the soccer players trying to score goals on each other. Good finish. The basketball students practicing their layouts.

The school was founded by a man named Devin Quinn. Each day they have four classes, two academic, to athletic, but they alternate. They'll have, so like all these kids that are an academic class right now, they will be in an athletic class their next period. And then after that, back to an academic class, and then the last period for them would be athletic. The togethership is part of a new phenomenon,

a growing, multi-million-dollar cottage industry of private schools across the country that emphasize athletics. Another thing that makes these schools unusual is that they offer to hold students back a year in middle school, specifically so they can get better at sports. And so if we can get this one more year to prepare them and get them set up so that they enter high school fully prepared,

it's a really big advantage. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Thursday, June 18th. Coming up on the show, the big business of holding back eighth graders. This episode is presented by SAP. Your company's ambitions can't be held back

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AI Cloud ERP for any sense. business. SAP.com slash grow. Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention

to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fans, and they're here with me on Spotify. Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip, they stay for hours. They don't move on, they manifest. They're not a demographic group.

They're fans. Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Holding kids back isn't a new thing. But historically, it's only been done for academic or behavioral reasons, and it often comes with negative connotations. Here's our colleague Harriet Ryan, an investigative reporter. I mean, getting held back when I was a child meant like you did not learn to read that year,

you couldn't sit still, and they thought they're going to give you another crack at third grade. But that's not what this holdback is. Yeah, I mean, certainly I remember back in school, like that was. would be a way to tease someone. Yeah, that one kid who's like a foot taller than everybody else in the class, yeah. And if you did it specifically for sports, that was pretty fringe.

Those parents were seen as somewhat insane. Even by people who had their kids playing, you know, elite sports, they thought, like, well, somebody who would do that, it's kind of crazy. And I will point to no greater source than the movie Varsity Blues, which was about overbearing football parents in Texas.

Yep, gonna hold our toy back a year. So it'll be bigger. for frost trites. Eighth grade ain't so bad, is it, son? This started to change a few years ago, when college athletes suddenly were able to get paid. After a historic ruling by the NCAA, collegiate athletes across the country

have a newfound freedom, freedom to make money. What allows college athletes to get paid for their name, image, and likeness, and what can be lucrative NIL deals? NIL, so that's name, image, and a likeness, of the Supreme Court decision that made the possible to compensate amateur athletes, that just rolled everything back about when you have to start thinking about becoming really good at sports if you want to get paid.

So before it was like, you know, the money's in the pros, so you need to start planning when you're in college. Now the money's in college, you can start planning when you're in high school or even middle school. And like not that many people can make it to the pros and everybody kind of has a good sense of that. You know, there's like, I don't know, like around 450 roster spots in the NBA, so you probably don't have a chance. but college and NIL money? Like, maybe we could get that. Right. Devin from the Togethership says NIL deals are definitely something he and the families are thinking about.

The NIL has really became a factor. And now all of a sudden it speeds it up where kids are getting able to make money off this starting, you know, senior year, freshman year of college. And so I would say that that has now, become a pretty big factor in it, but originally it was not part of the reasoning at all, but it definitely is a bigger factor now. And to increase their odds of getting an NAL deal, which can be worth millions of dollars for the best athletes, parents and students are looking for any advantage they can get. And an extra year of school definitely helps.

For boys, the dream that's kind of sold to parents is that in this year, your kid is going to just sprout up. grow three inches, six inches, eight inches. And they're going to become more coordinated. They're going to bulk up. Which means they might get faster, stronger, and overall better at their sport. And with an extra year, they'll also build confidence and maturity.

And so they go into high school and be a force. Instead of playing freshman football or JV, they will start on varsity. And they will have four great, years to showcase their abilities to colleges. That is the idea behind it. But what is the rule on this? I mean, can students just be held back for whatever reason the parents want?

Most public schools will not let you hold back for an athletic reason alone. If a child is, you know, struggling academically or social emotionally, they might allow a student to repeat a year. But if the parents are just like, this is for sports, no. They don't let you do that. And that's why there's been this proliferation of private holdback academies because they are serving a need that the vast majority of public schools will not do. So the schools are saying, no, you can't do this.

But like, hey, there's a private school down the street that says, if you pay us, we'll hold them back for a year. Yes. One of those private schools down the street is the togethership. The growth that I saw in that one year I knew was special or like, there was really something there. Devin started off working with students who did a holdback year through homeschooling.

And the parents of those kids encouraged him to start his own school. And so I always joke, like, I don't know if I love or hate those moms who said, hey, you have something here, like, this is a school for athletes that you basically are running. And so they were the ones that

kind of pushed me to really pursue it and make it into a real structured school. He opened the togethership in 2020. So here's our science room. Hi. What grade is this? This is seventh grade. Seventh grade?

Yeah. Hi there. I'm Christine. That's okay. Oh, hi. Our producer Pierce Singh visited the school recently. Its co-ed costs about $20,000 a year and has grades six through eight, plus one more, the holdback program. Yeah, so we call it HSP, high school prep.

The Togethership is in San Clemente, California, an affluent area of Orange County. Its campus sits on a hill overlooking the ocean. She's got an ocean view in there. We stand over here. Each student has a sports focus. Right now, the school offers football, basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and the cross.

But they have regular classes, too. Playing family feud with mythology. All right, next step. Pierce visited one class while it was doing a trivia game. All right, gentlemen, who is Kronos' wife? Ray. Yes, sir. Excellent, excellent.

Some students were also testing how fast their sprints were. Let's go, Lana, let's go, Lana, let's go, Lana, let's go, Lana, let's go, 155, there you go. And the school's food options, if you pay extra for it, is also tailored to athletes with high-proteen meals. meals. Eggs and bacon, and some protein shakes, and then also some oatmeal overnight oats. 2,800 calories of mostly protein.

Yeah, yeah, really protein dominate and really just trying to make sure that they're getting enough fuel in their body for, you know, they're doing two workouts here, and then after school a lot of times will have practice as well. So it's a lot of energy expended throughout. The protein will help with the gains in the weight room. But does holding back a year help with the gains in life? That's after this recess. This episode is brought to you by Activia.

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So once I got an extra year of work, it was like, yeah, I'm ready. Like, I can go hoop with anybody. Here he is talking on a podcast about it. Because that made hoops circuit. When I play eighth grade, I want it because I had confidence. And I was like, yeah, I can play high school. Just don't call it getting held back to his face. AJ, just a quick follow-a question with that.

So you said that you got held. you did eighth grade twice. I know that's fun fact. I actually was held back in eighth grade. See, but now it's... Did you get held back because of your grades? No.

Reclassify. Are we changing the term? I did not get held back. I re-classed that. Okay. You said, there we go. Because held back is like, you know, your grades is wrong.

You didn't pass. I pass. Many students want to reclassify so that they can be like A.J. de Bonza. But many of the families Harriet spoke to were also interested in this type of education especially after those years of online school during the pandemic. People in this area of Orange County are very concerned about academics as well as athletics.

They want their kids to get into good colleges academically as well as athletically. I think when I've talked to people about the story, everyone wants me to say, like, oh, I met a lot of crazy people that have crazy ideas about their kids. And no, I met like normal people who were like, I looked at, did my research, talked to coaches, looked around my travel team, looked around my club team, and this is the right auction for my kid. One of those families is the Cancelaries. 15 years old, Carter Cancelary, San Clemente.

I'm going into freshman year, just finished up eighth grade. Carter Cancelary did a holdback year at the Togethership, where he focused on baseball. His dream is to play baseball in college, and then professionally, hopefully for the San Diego Padres. He spoke to our producer Pierce. One of the reasons that people talk about doing these holdback years is also what gives like a chance for your body to mature physically also?

Is that something that, you know, you've seen? 100%. Like I've always been undersized and going in to that whole back year, I was much smaller, shorter, weight, not a lot. And then this whole year I've gained weight, gone bigger, faster, stronger, taller, so everything in that extra year has matured and gone up. Well, what's your favorite thing like on the field?

Like, what do you like doing the most? probably hitting. I enjoy that the most, for sure. Here's Carter's dad, Michael. The holdback part of this was being driven by Carter. He's a very dedicated, focused kid. He wanted to be able to perform the best that he could. He was pretty focused on the type of high school

or the league that he wanted to go to in the area. And he has always known, like, there were certain steps to kind of get there. And if this gave him a better opportunity to kind of reach some of those goals, then he was all for it. Next year, Carter will be attending a private school in the Trinity League,

an athletic conference in Southern California that's known for elite athletics. Is competitive a league you will get in the country in any sport? The football programs are, you know, amazing. The women's boys, every kind of athletic activity at those schools is just hyper, hyper-competitive.

In parts of the country where sports are especially competitive, like Southern California, where Carter lives, Michael says it's starting to feel like a disadvantage not to hold your kid back. Especially at the top schools, this has become much, much more prevalent. So, yeah, I think that it can be a disadvantage if you're not kind of taking advantage of this, and it may make it more challenging. Where do you think this trend is heading?

I mean, do you think that we're, that this is going to create a situation where just more and more and more schools and kids across the country are being held back a year. It's going to become more common? You know, I think what will happen eventually, and if this hasn't already happened, it's that everybody who is like a D1 boy competitive athlete is going to have been reclassed or held back. I think some experts believe like, okay, that's where we're going. And once we're there, it's not an advantage anymore, but, you know, but not doing, it sure is a disadvantage.

I think there's a belief among some parents, they know their kid is not going to get a college scholarship or NIL money. They want them to have the opportunity to play in high school. And where they live, they look around and everybody's doing this. And so their kid who doesn't do it is going to be deprived in their view of the opportunity just to play on their high school team. How does affluence play a factor in this? I mean, is this an opportunity that really is only available to, wealthier families. I talked to a woman who runs a homeschool program,

so she's basically like sort of a concierge for parents who want to homeschool their kids, and she helps them, like, figure out what their state requirements are and how to fill out the paperwork. She charges her basic packages $650 a year. And she said she's getting a ton of athletic families, and she said they are middle class or a little bit lower than that, and they cannot afford a private school for their kids. They can afford to do this.

they're doing it. I mean, I gotta be honest, like, it sounds kind of appealing to me. Thinking back to my own high school experience, which I loved, you know, but like the idea that I could spend more time studying basketball, which is my main sport, you know, and like learning how to get better, doesn't sound so bad. A little bit less time sitting and looking at a book. I mean, all the parents I talked to said there are literally no drawbacks.

they fight with the kids less about homework because the kids a year older in high school. They are more coordinated. They are more able to be self-starters. Some people told me, like, even if my kid wasn't an athlete, I would hold them back because boys are so difficult to deal with in high school

and if they were all just a year older, things would be better. So there's definitely a contingent that thinks there's no drawback at all. There are people who think the holdback year could have potential drawback. For instance, Harriet talked to one coach who said that sometimes is good for players to be smaller than everyone else, because it teaches them how to deal with adversity. He was a basketball player. He played professionally in Europe. And he said a really defining moment in my life was being a gangly freshman who was not good and got run over by everybody.

And that gave me ambition and a work ethic and grit. And I used that to become better and better and better. And he said, you know, I think for all players now, I just wonder whether they are going to give them me adversity, not having just dealt with it through the natural course of life. Across the country, some states still think it's unfair. In Pennsylvania, if a student holds back a year for sports, the state will take a year of high school sports eligibility from them. But others are giving in.

Other states have sort of just been like, this is a battle we don't want to fight anymore. So Louisiana used to have these, like, pretty tough rules. Like, they would penalize coaches, they would penalize schools who were involved in any way, and they just got rid of those rules in 2023. And in Orange County, where the togethership is, the largest school district there, Capistrano Unified, will start offering its own holdback program this upcoming fall. Paid for by taxpayers, like people in that district will be paying for kids to repeat eighth grade, yeah. The public school system is rolling out a competitor to these schools because it become that common? Yeah, and, and decline.

any enrollment is a huge problem in public schools, and they are trying to keep families as much as they can. And to me, like, that is so powerful. I would say the holdbacks, the forefront of Holdback Academies has been Orange County in affluent areas of Orange County. And look how the public schools are reacting to it. They're like, can't beat them. Let's join them. The last time that you were on our podcast, we were talking about the effect that NIL money was having on high school players, And now we're talking about the effect that this is happening on middle schoolers. Do you think that the effects of this, these forces are going to just keep trickling downward

until we're finally doing an episode about the toddler industrial sports complex? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I don't know what toddler industrial sports complex, but there are definitely very young kids in elementary school kids and travel teams. And I think that the growth of that has been fueled by, NIL. And it doesn't really matter that only a very small minority of kids are going to get those big NIL deals and go off and we're going to watch them on TV on Saturdays. It doesn't matter that's a small percentage because they are sort of influencers and they are convincing other kids,

other families, this is the right thing, that this is what people who are serious, who are really committed do. Devin, at the Togethership, is also really committed. And he has some big dreams for his school and for his students. And my ultimate vision, I always say, is to be able to go to any college or professional game and be able to see Togethership alumni playing on the field. I say that, you know, on Monday night football or Thursday night football, when they introduce themselves, they usually say,

you know, what college they went to. And so I always am like, man, one day a kid's going to say, I went to the Togethership. And that's kind of like when I say, like, all right, we did it. That's all for today. Thursday, June 18th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. The show's made by Laura Benchhoff, Catherine Brewer, Evelyn Fahardo Alvarez, Pia Gadkari, Max Green, Sophie Codner, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Jessica Mendoza, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez-Dela Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez-Espinoza,

Heather Rogers, Pierce Singy, Jivica Verma, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamiz and me, Ryan Knudsen. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Catherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapok, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking by Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening.

We're off tomorrow for the holiday. We'll be back on Monday. See you then.