The National Federation of State High School Associations released data today showing that participation in high school athletics increased in the 2014-15 school year for the 26th consecutive year and that Illinois ranks fourth among all states in overall participation.
The most popular boys’ sport is football, with about 1.1 million students participating during the 2014-15 academic year, and the most popular girls’ sport is track and field.
But although football enjoys a commanding lead atop the boys’ popularity list, with second place going to track and field and its 578,000 participants, girls’ sports show volleyball and basketball coming in just short of track and field’s 479,000 participants. Volleyball was third last year among girls, but this year it overtook basketball to reach the No 2 spot.
And while nationwide overall participation in sports has increased, the participation in the most popular boys’ sport in Illinois, which is football, has not shown an increasing trend. It reached a peak of 51,334 in the fall season of 2007, but since then has declined every fall, except for a slight uptick two years ago. Last year, 46,896 students participated in football in Illinois.
It’s only natural to expect states with the greatest population to have the greatest participation in high school sports, but a few facts about high school sports and population demographics buck the trend in a number of states.
First, the NFHS doesn’t measure participation the same way in all 50 states. Illinois includes private schools in its participation numbers because private schools are members of the Illinois High School Association. Maryland doesn’t, because there’s a separate association, known as the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association, that covers private schools. The Maryland Public Secondary School Athletic Association only gives membership to public schools.
Here are the top participating states in high school athletics, along with the ranking of each of the top 10 states in total population:
| State | Participation | Participation Rank | Population Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 804,598 | 1 | 2 |
| California | 797,101 | 2 | 1 |
| New York | 389,475 | 3 | 4 |
| Illinois | 340,972 | 4 | 5 |
| Ohio | 319,929 | 5 | 7 |
| Pennsylvania | 319,562 | 6 | 6 |
| Michigan | 295,660 | 7 | 10 |
| New Jersey | 279,377 | 8 | 11 |
| Florida | 267,954 | 9 | 3 |
| Minnesota | 235,243 | 10 | 21 |
The low participation numbers in Florida despite it being the nation’s third most populous state could be due to population demographics in Florida. Nationwide about 23.3 percent of the population is under 18. In Florida, only about 20.6 percent is under 18, while in Minnesota, 23.6 percent is, slightly above the average. Florida just doesn’t have as many high school students as other heavily populated states.
Finally, the participation numbers represent slots on the sports teams at schools in the state, not students. If a boy played football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring, that one student would have been counted three times. Girls specialize in a single sport year-round more than boys do, so you might assume the boys’ numbers are inflated by three-sport student-athletes more than the girls’ numbers are. That’s my hypothesis, anyway, supported by the fact that there are simply more girls’ volleyball club teams than football club teams.