High school sports participation tops 7 million
Total student participation for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, meanwhile, rose 1.6 percent from 2003-04 to a record 7 million in 2004-05, according to an annual survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations. It was the 16th straight year the NFHS reported an increase in the number of high school athletes.
“The fact the numbers continue to rise confirm to us the interest in school-based athletic programs is still there,” NFHS spokesman Bruce Howard said Tuesday. “Certainly, there are some emerging sports that help that, such as bowling and lacrosse, in certain parts of the country. A lot of the routine major sports continue to be pretty steady year to year.”
Football again had the most participants and the largest increase among all boys’ sports. Basketball remained the leading sport for girls, but track and field showed the biggest gain. In terms of percentage increases, bowling and lacrosse had the biggest gains for both boys and girls.
Another emerging sport, mainly in California, Maine and Vermont, is snowboarding.
Texas, with 740,052 participants, is still the national leader but has dropped more than 39,000 since 2000-01, including almost 15,000 in just the past year, according to the NFHS figures. California remains second, with an increase of almost 26,000 to 678,019, and New York is still third at 350,349, an increase of almost 14,000.
Michigan’s increase from 302,648 to 311,814 moved it from sixth to fourth. Illinois fell to fifth, Ohio dropped to sixth and Pennsylvania remained seventh. The only other position change among the top 10 states was by Minnesota, which moved ahead of New Jersey into eighth. Florida again was 10th.
Total participation for boys was 4.1 million, including just over 1 million in football and about 545,000 in basketball. The total for girls was a record 2.9 million, including some 456,000 in basketball and about 428,000 in outdoor track and field.
The Indianapolis-based NFHS represents about 18,000 U.S. high schools and some 13 million students. The participation survey is based on figures supplied by each member state association.