Football down? Running up?
NFHS survey finds interesting trends in Connecticut participation
Last week, a nationwide survey from the National Federation of State High School Associations revealed that high school sports participation had dropped in Connecticut to its lowest level in more than a decade, mirroring a broader national trend.
But beyond that overall decline — which officials attribute to a drop in high school enrollment, an increase in single-sport specialization and the rise of prep schools and travel teams — the NFHS survey revealed numerous trends related to Connecticut high school sports participation.
Here are six of the most interesting:
Football participation continues to decline
For the sixth time in seven years, high school football participation declined in Connecticut from the fall of 2017 to the fall of 2018.
Though the drop was fairly modest, from 9,241 players to 9,059, the broader trend suggests trouble for the sport. Since its peak a decade ago, high school football participation has dropped 16.3 percent in Connecticut — a sharper decline than the one that shows up in the national numbers.
The most obvious cause for this dip is concern over the health risks of playing football. In a 2018 survey, 46 percent of American parents (53 percent of mothers; 39 percent of fathers) said they would encourage their children to play a sport other than football.
Coaches and officials have also cited the rise in specialization, as well as an increase in costs associated with football.
In response to the decline in
football participation, a growing number of local high schools have begun to merge their teams into coops. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference has implemented protocols to make the game safer, and some schools have even banned contact in practice.
More girls are playing ‘boys’ sports
Though football participation overall has dropped in recent years, the number of girls playing the sport has risen consistently, from single digits in the mid-2000s to more than 40 in each of the past two years.
The increase in girls playing sports typically imagined as “boys” games extends beyond football. Girls participation in Connecticut high school baseball has risen from 0 in 2006 to 5 in 2014 to 17 each of the past two years. Girls participation in Connecticut high school wrestling reached 131 in 2018-19, up 64 percent from only two years prior.
The NFHS survey does not include numbers on girls playing with boys in sports (such as soccer and lacrosse) that also have girls teams, but at least some in Connecticut have chosen to do so, including Academy of Aerospace and Engineering soccer standout Sabrina Porter.
Boys basketball is up… but girls basketball is down
The NFHS survey ’s numbers on basketball in Connecticut reveal a surprising paradox: As many high school boys are playing the sport as ever before, but girls participation has dropped sharply.
In fact, fewer girls played high school basketball in 2018-19 (3,718) than in any other year since 2002-03, the earliest year for which data is available.
This trend is visible nationally as well, where high school girls basketball participation has reached its lowest level since the 199293 school year, per the NFHS, and has dropped more rapidly in the last decade than any other sport, including football.
Girls sports participation more generally has risen consistently over recent decades but dipped both nationally and in Connecticut in the most recent survey.
The opposite is true of lacrosse
Nationally, lacrosse continues to grow in popularity. In Connecticut, however, the trend seems split by gender.
On the girls side, high school participation has soared, from 2,585 players in 2004, when there were only 56 teams, to 3,904 in 2019, when there were 94. In 2018-19 more girls in Connecticut played lacrosse than played basketball, tennis, field hockey or softball.
On the boys side, the story is entirely different. Even as the number of high school teams in Connecticut have increased, participation has dropped for five straight years, following an extended rise. There are now fewer boys playing high school lacrosse in Connecticut than there were in 2008, when the sport’s popularity was just beginning to spike.
Despite its billing as the next big thing, lacrosse is
only the eighth most popular sport among Connecticut high school boys, having recently been passed by cross country.
Baseball is down… but maybe not as much as you’d think
Given the common narrative around baseball — that it’s become too slow, that it’s not cool, that kids don’t like it — you might expect that high school participation has dropped sharply. But the reality is a bit more complicated.
Yes, baseball participation is down from its peak a decade ago, from 6,161 players in 2009 to 5,680 in 2019. But the sport’s year-to-year drops have typically been small, and the numbers aren’t far below where they were in the early 2000s. In the most recent NFHS survey, baseball had lost only 35 players from one year to the next.
Nationally, baseball participation has actually risen slightly over the past 10 years.
Baseball still has issues, including a steady decrease in Little League participation in Connecticut and elsewhere, but its decline at the high school level has not been nearly as steep as that of football.
Everyone is running
So if football, baseball and others are losing players, which sports are gaining them?
The answer seems to be… anything that involves running.
Since 2002-03, boys cross country participation is up 36 percent and girls cross country is up 20 percent. Over that same time period, boys indoor track and field is up 41 percent and girls indoor track and field is up 30 percent. Boys outdoor track and field is up 30 percent and girls outdoor track and field is up 21 percent.
Outdoor track and field is now the No. 2 sport among high school boys (behind football) and the No. 1 sport among high school girls.
If bats, balls and shoulder pads are less popular than they used to be, running shoes might be having a moment.